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

[Images by Seattle Times]

Sorry, Kyle Rayner, this kid might just be my new hero.

Erik Martin, who is living with liver cancer, dreamed of being a superhero. Yesterday, the regional chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation granted him that wish with an elaborate event that involved hundreds of volunteers around the Seattle area.

And I mean they pulled the works. I’m talking about Erik becoming his own superhero, “Electron Boy” who has his own arch-nemesis “Dr. Dark“. Oh, and he saves Spider-Man, the city, as well as the Seattle Sounders.

There was even a video package from his enemy playing in Qwest Stadium. “Electron Boy, I am Dr. Dark and this is Blackout Boy,” sneered an evil voice, as the villain: Edgar Hansen, and his sidekick Jake Anderson, both of Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch who taunted the young superhero. “We are here to take over Seattle and make it dark!”

Of course, what would any superhero story be without the hero conquering over evil? The Seattle Times has an entire article about how the rest of wish played out. I have to say, it’s pretty emotional to see how many people can come together to make this kid’s wish come true like they did. The police, these volunteers, and the soccer team. The whole shebang. It’s truly amazing, incredible, uncanny…you name it.

Watching her son run across the plaza in front of the Space Needle, mom Judy Martin said Erik goes to school when he’s able, but sometimes doesn’t have the energy. “He hasn’t had this much energy in a long time,” she said. “They called it the power of the wish, and they’re right.”

“I don’t see how a feeling person can read this and not want to reach out to this kid,” said Tom Feister, of IDW’s GI JOE: Origins. “Super-heroes really can inspire the world”

I personally wish this kid has the best day tomorrow on Free Comic Book Day, but I’m sure it will be hard to top this experience. Erik was very thankful and appreciative and simply stated “This is the best day of my life.” Here’s to you, Erik.

Say hello to Sarah Wayne Callies, who is reported to have been cast as Lori Grimes, the wife of Rick (who was cast by Andrew Lincoln) in AMC’s “Walking Dead” series. She’s most known for her role on the FOX show Prisonbreak from a few years back.

More and more, this show is looking to have a stellar cast.

I don’t know about you, but my calendar is already marked for July 20, 2012, which is the official release date for the untitled “Batman 3″ of the Nolan-verse. Now, of course this date could change, but seeing how TDK came out around the same time almost 2 years ago (wow, times flies) you would think they would aim around that time again.

So I guess casting and filming should start roughly by the end of this year now that “Inception” has wrapped.

Let the speculation games begin.

You know what? I think this Free Comic Book Day thing is catching on.

Kevin Smith has a YouTube video talking about FCBD, and I agree you should spread the world.

Superhero comics aren’t the end all, be all of the industry, and there’s a lot of stuff out there this weekend that could get a hook a new reader or two, or a couple thousand.

I’m planning on going to my local comic shop tomorrow for Karl Moline sketches, free comics, chatting up Tony Bedard and just having a great time. From where I sit, sometimes the comic world can be a bit jaded, but tomorrow is a day to really celebrate the comradeship it can bring.

Hope to see you out there.

What’s the one thing that’s less Incognito than a comic about a supervillain in witness protection falling off the wagon and hitting the streets once more?

A movie about it.

Deadline has reported that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ superhero noir book has been picked up by 20th Century Fox. Playwright Robert Schenkkan will be writing the adaptation, while Chernin Entertainment and Circle of Confusion will be teaming up for production duties.

“We’ve all seen the story of a good person who goes undercover and gets corrupted,” Bru told Deadline. “This is a bad person forced to live among regular people, and how he’s affected by that. He once ran around with a mask, but now he’s got the fake name and the fake job. My goal was to have you rooting for him as he grows a conscience.”

There’s currently no word as to when this might hit the big screen.

And lo,  there came a day when Latino Review posted an image of the Thunder God himself — what say ye?

Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Verily. Do you guys dig the look, or do you shout out “nay”? If you’re itching for some more Thor news, Latino Review also has a pic of an old-school adversary of Thor’s, which will be making its way to the big screen. Either which way, Hemsworth will pick up Mjolnir May 6, 2011.

“Something that is described in four or five pages can be done in a single panel, and it has real impact on people”: Writing for Publisher’s Weekly, Brigid Alverson covers the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo’s panel on libraries’ comic book and graphic novel related challenges. That quote is from Deborah Caldwell-Stone of the American Library Association, talking about one of the things that makes the perception of comics by patrons so different from that of prose books.

“I felt like the whole comic book thing is over. Like we can’t go back to that anymore”: Time Out New York interviews Daniel Clowes about his (exceptional) new graphic novel, Wilson. That quote is Clowes  explaining why this book was published as a bound, “‘graphic novel’ object” (in the words of the interviewer) instead of as a series of comics. Clowes goes on to explain that, “Now that you have to charge six dollars or whatever for a comic book it’s not the same thing as it was. It just seems like an affectation at this point in time.”

“Iron Man 2: the first superhero film of the Obama era?”: So asks Ben Walters for The Guardian, who hopefully realizes that Obama has been president for about 18 months now.

“There are space aliens, but there are also numbers”: The San Francisco Chronicle has a nice profile of Gene Luen Yang occasioned by the release of Prime Baby, this piece focusing on him not only as a comics creator, but also as a teacher and father.

Really? Starman?: According to this, Starman is on Warner Bros. radar for development into a superhero franchise. There’s an awful lot of potential there, but man, that’s one daunting body of comics, given all the different versions of the character DC’s had over the decades. Which one would the studio go with?

Oh my God you guys!: James Kochalka’s Dragon Puncher looks so awesome!

Cliff Chiang is still a great artist: After seeing how great Cliff Chiang’s Oracle looked in Brave and the Bold #33, and how great his Oracle looked compared to Ed Benes’ Oracle, who was in an ad for Birds of Prey that appeared in the same issue, I found myself wishing Chiang was going to be drawing the new volume of BOP instead of Benes. Someone at DC must have also thought Chiang would do a hell of a nice job on the Birds, as he’s providing variant covers for the new series. Check out his cover for the first issue.

Hicksville
Written & Illustrated by Dylan Horrocks
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

For its tenth anniversary edition, Dylan Horrocks’ Hicksville gets a new edition with an all-new comic-style introduction by Horrocks. It may not sound like much, but Hicksville doesn’t need much dressing up; it’s an amazing comic by most standards.  And Horrocks’ new introduction shows how the dreams of comic book success depicted in Hicksville can affect a creator and that creator’s love of his chosen form.

Hicksville chronicles the intersection of several lives in the titular village, somewhere in remotest New Zealand.  Leonard, a lifelong comic book fan, reporter for ComicsWorld Magazine and author of a biography on legendary comics artist Jack Kirby, travels to Hicksville pursuing background information on Dick Burger, the most famous and successful creator in comics history.  Burger revitalized old characters, creating multimedia franchises, buying his own publisher and becoming the greatest overnight success story in comics history.  Sam Zabel writes and draws unnoticed autobiographical comics and humor strips, and many years ago, Sam and Dick were best friends.  LUCY, onetime friend of Sam and Dick and lover of PETER, left Hicksville years ago to find herself, and now she’s come home.

Although the book is ostensibly about Leonard discovering Dick Burger’s great, dark secret, the real journey is Leonard and LUCY finding themselves and where they belong in the world.  Horrocks, hopping from one character’s perspective to another’s with each chapter, weaves in involving tapestry.  Each character’s arc evolves specifically and carefully, mixing their internal journey with an entertaining and often humorous surface plot.

Seeing the all-new introduction gives readers a new appreciation for Horrocks’ artistic skills.  To be frank, Hicksville doesn’t look very good.  Though the character designs are strong, the thin lines don’t offer any weight to the images, and the figures are stiff as boards.  The backgrounds are detailed, but sloppy.  In short, Hicksville’s script and characters drive it, not the artistry.  Horrocks’ introduction, however, displays vastly more developed skills, showcasing effective anatomy, an ability to play with style, and strong eye for shadow and layout.

Hicksville is about the history of comics, and how creators haven’t always been valued throughout that history.  But mostly, Hicksville tells of several people finding out who they are and where they want to be.  It’s a story for geeks and outcasts, and it’s a story about belonging and self-worth.  And it’s really good.

Via Best Shots’ own Amanda McDonald, who has the scoop on an iconic figure in children’s literature.

Most of us have a favorite genre, be it comics, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, or a combination thereof. As a child of two educators, I was an avid reader from the start and it didn’t take me long to find my niche– mysteries. In these young years I preferred formulaic mysteries; I liked when I could figure out ‘who-done-it’ before the protagonist did. This meant a lot of Encyclopedia Brown, Hardy Boys, and the queen of kiddie-mystery– Nancy Drew. I always preferred Nancy: she was beautiful, popular, privileged, and smart as a whip.

Nancy celebrated her 80th birthday this week, with her first three books (The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase and The Bungalow Mystery) released April 28, 1930. I just had the most fantastical daydream of taking a magnifying glass shaped birthday cake to the super sleuth’s home and celebrating her 80 years as she regaled me with tales of her adventures and we laughed at the half wits who tried to pull one over on her. Oh, how I wish I could do just that!

Alas, she is a fictional character– as most of my childhood ‘best friends’ were. Nancy is still going strong today in the elementary school library I run. Of course we have the original titles and they are popular with mystery buffs, but we also have newer Nancy Drew titles that a lot of you that enjoyed her as kids may not know about. Most of us know of the lackluster feature film (and of course there are associated books), but did you know Nancy is also in graphic novel format now? She sure is!

Happy birthday, Nancy– and here’s to many more! Dear readers: what genre ‘hooked’ you into reading as a kid? Are you still faithful to that genre? Do you ever dust off your classics and revisit them? The news of Nancy’s 80 years has inspired me to do so.

Check out this Threadless.com design submission by artists codenamed “badbasilisk” and “silverqe,” which reimagines Professor Xavier and some of his most popular X-Men as bad-ass, tattoo-ready animals. That’s Cyclops above, and he’s probably the least awesome one, so you’ll have to click through to see Storm as a horse and Professor X as a cute little mole in a miniature wheelchair. Be sure to check out this page too, in which one of the artists walks you through the process, and you can see how they asigned various animals to various X-Men.

I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to wear a shirt like that—as cool as it is, it’s still an X-Men shirt of sorts—but I buy a comic book featuring these animal/X-Men amalgams drawn in that style in a heart beat.

If Marvel’s doing  Lockjaw and The Pet Avengers comics, why can’t we have an all-animal X-Men team? It would hardly be the most superfluous X-Men tie-in ever…

The feel is there. I think Brolin nailed down the voice and mannerisms and of course, Malkovich doing this usually creepy schtick. I’ve heard Fox doesn’t have that huge of a role, but her line delivery still makes me want to cringe. Some people just aren’t made for Southern accents. I wish the studio had done more publicity than it has. It just seems odd that a movie coming out in a month and a half finally has a trailer out. Especially one that has the potential to be a Summer blockbuster and possibly franchise.

You can check it out over here.

I’ll still be lined up to see it. I’m a sucker for Westerns with a twist, but I don’t recall Hex having any super-natural powers. What do you think, readers? Does this trailer show enough potential to get your metaphorical horses riled up?

We’ll see though. Jonah Hex rides into theaters June 18th.

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!

Betty and Veronica. Josie and Pussycats Valerie and Melody. Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. The late Dan DeCarlo created, defined or refined each of those long-lived cartoon cuties, and now we have another name to add to the list of DeCarlo’s comic book heroines: Jetta, “the Teen-Age Sweetheart of the 21st Century.”

Jetta was the subject of a trio of mid-century teen comedy comics, with a sci-fi twist. Many of the gags were familiar, but the setting and slang were futuristic, or at least the 1950′s version of futuristic (We still don’t have flying cars and jetpacks, but we do have the miniskirt, so DeCarlo successfully predicted that particular trend).

If you  haven’t met Jetta yet, Craig Yoe would be more than happy to make the introduction. Yoe is, of course, an astoundingly prolific cartoonist, designer, writer, editor, comics historian and DeCarlo fan, whose recent books have included The Art of Steve Ditko, Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers, The Great Anti-War Cartoons and Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster.

His latest is Dan DeCarlo’s Jetta, a beautifully designed hardcover collecting all three issues of Jetta, plus almost 40 pin-ups of the character from a wide variety of artists including Colleen Coover, Molly Crabapple, Andrew Pepoy, Dean Yeagle and Jay Stephens. Published with IDW, Jetta is the first volume of Yoe’s planned series of such collections, The Good Girl Art Library. I could tell you more about the book, but why don’t we ask a real expert instead?

Blog@Newsarama: Teen humor comics used to be a dime a dozen—well, a dime per issue—in your opinion, what makes Dan DeCarlo’s art so special that it still warrants the attention it gets? Like this book of yours, for example.

Craig Yoe: There’s a freshness, a brilliance to Dan’s work and, of course, sex appeal. On the latter, as sexy as the Dan DeCarlo girl was, she was the girl next door, or could have been. I never bought the idea that the Playboy centerfold was the girl next door—only in my dreams!

Blog@: As an artist yourself, how influential would you say DeCarlo was on you? And as a fan of sexy cartoon art—or am I being presumptuous? Most of the books of yours I have on my bookshelf have drawings of naked ladies in them—how big an influence would you say DeCarlo was on other artists who drew sexy girls?

CY: Well, Dan’s Betty and Veronica certainly were some of my first exposures to hot cartoon chicks. That appeal affected me when I was young and is something I have never outgrown. I have filled sketchbooks studying and copying Dan’s work to try and absorb some of the magic for my own art. I even used to solicit tips on how to draw from Dan himself when we would get together as friends.

But, hey, I’ve done many books on cartoon history without one naked girl in the—I think it says something about you that most of the books you own by me are the salacious ones!

When I solicited pinups by contemporary artists for the Dan DeCarlo’s Jetta book I easily found many top pinup and cartoon artists that love DeCarlo’s ladies. All of the thirty-seven artists I drafted to do pinups for the book were very enthusiastic about drawing a tribute to Dan. There is a lot of love for Dan’s art in the creative cartooning community, and it shows in the incredible work all the artists turned in!
(more…)

Unknown Solder v.2: Easy Kill
Written by Joshua Dysart
Illustrated by Alberto Ponticello & Pat Masioni
Colored by Oscar Celestini & José Villarrubia
Lettered by Clem Robbins
Covers by Dave Johnson

2002. Uganda.

I missed v. 1 of this series, so I’m trying to get up to speed here.  Set in the midst of a brutal and horrifying (oh, and real) civil war – terrorist action might also be an apt descriptor – Easy Kill follows Dr. Moses Lwanga on a quest of vengeance and forgiveness.  Horribly scarred by a Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) assault, Lwanga wraps his mutilated face in bandages and sets about a quest for revenge.

In this volume, potential allies enlist Lwanga’s aid to assassinate a Hollywood starlet; their agenda to blame the LRA for the killing should bring international attention to the plight of the forgotten continent.  The starlet is working with Lwanga’s wife on a fund-raising dinner in memorial of Lwanga himself, leading to a conflict inside and outside the book’s hero.  It’s easy to guess that he doesn’t kill the starlet in the end, except he does murder dozens of innocents in this book, so don’t be too sure.  Later, Lwanga also escorts an orphan boy, once forcibly drafted into the LRA army, to his home village.

Easy Kill is a violent book, full of darkness and anger, and Lwanga chokes on its own regrets throughout.  Dysart does a fine job getting into his protagonist’s head, showing us his dreams and visions of failure and murder.  The conflicted desires for revenge and for peaceful life are played well.  The political situation is slightly unclear – perhaps because I’ve not read the first book in the series, and because this book focuses on Lwanga’s conflicted nature rather than the causes of conflict – but Dysart doesn’t really offer up good guys vs. bad guys anyway.  It’s an ugly, complicated world.

Ponticello and Masioni, the series’ illustrators, both provide solid artwork.  Each offers detailed backgrounds and angular, world-weary characters, set in a clear-to-follow grid.  A few angles are jarring, but most experienced comic readers won’t even notice.  Neither artist’s work transcends that page, but both are solid professionals ably abetting Dysart’s vision.

Driven by challenging moral quandries, Unknown Soldier’s second book, Easy Kill, is a gutsy, scary tale of loss, of a man committed to actions that terrify and repulse him, of a young boy terrified of the world he’s been taken from, of a woman torn between the man her husband has become and the man she remembers.  It’s unflinching, violent and extremely empathetic.  The big problems of the world do not have easy answers, but Unknown Soldier is seeking them anyway.

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

Editor’s Note: When manga, anime and fan culture hits the blogosphere, what time is it? You guessed it — Your Manga Minute, making its epic return to Newsarama! Leading the charge on this brave new venture is Julie Opipari: You’ve seen her on Manga Maniac Cafe, Mania.com and When Fangirls Attack, as she writes reviews and helps cover the latest manga hits. With the seconds ticking and the books flying fast and furious, tune in every Wednesday for your latest dose of Your Manga Minute! And now, we’ll let Julie take over the show, as she starts her tenure with a look at anime cons — and their surprisingly similar equine counterparts.

By Julie Opipari

Hi! I’m the new kid on the block, and I thought I’d dip my toe in the water with a post that compares my two favorite things – manga and horses. Now, before you start thinking that they have nothing in common, let me point out that they are more alike than you would think. There are these grand outings planned by both comic fans and horse enthusiasts that are the pinnacle of fandom. In the manga world it’s known as an anime con, and to horse folk, it’s called a horse show. If you haven’t attended either one, you should! Shows, whether they feature manga or ponies, are a great way to network with other fans. There isn’t another venue where you can meet people who are as excited to talk about your hobby as you are, and better yet, they listen to what you have to say! None of that zoning out from your significant other when you start blathering on and on about the latest happenings in Bleach or how you finally perfected the sitting trot. Still not convinced? Read on for proof!

Cosplay: Just as anime fans feel the need to celebrate their favorite series by spending hours crafting the perfect costume, cosplay abounds at horse shows. I’m mystified as to why it’s necessary to dress up like fox hunters or a reject from a Kenny Rogers movie in order to ride a horse, but it’s generally required to wear these outlandish costumes in order to participate in the festivities. Driving classes demand fussing up in dresses or sparkly tops, which makes about as much sense as wearing flip-flops to either show. Besides getting nasty blisters walking around the dealer hall at a con, who knows what you’ll step in at a horse show.

Gender-bending: Gender-bending doesn’t only exist in manga! Check out the local saddleseat show for proof that it happily exists in real life. Look at all of those women decked out in their Sunday finest. Wait, why are they all wearing suits? And ties? Like many an anime series, this ritual makes little sense, but it sure gives you a feeling superiority knowing that your Double Windsor looks so much neater than everybody else’s! And, with your spurs and your riding whip, you feel strong and confident, almost like you are striding along in a mecha, ready to take on the world!

(more…)

Somebody call a doctor, because these pages look positively sick.

There aren’t a whole lot of words that can do this image justice, so I’ll stick with the basics: Velocity, by Kenneth Rocafort, courtesy of Top Cow. I saw this image at Chicago, and thankfully they’ve liberated it for you all to enjoy. The book (written by Ron Marz) is due out May 26th.

Excuse me while I continue to laugh/hack up a lung, but Topless Robot has a great post up, as Crazy Sexy Geeks interview Project Runway’s Tim Gunn about Superman, Robin, the Hulk, and  a whole lot more.

But his response to Electric Blue Superman is absolutely hilarious:

He also takes on the Return of Superman black-jumpsuit-and-mullet look, the Michael Turner outfit, as well as an unused costume submitted to Wizard Magazine. Pretty cool, right? Caleb snagged a link to Part One of this awesome and hilarious interview, which you can check over at Linkarama!

For those who dug Hal Jordan and Diana Prince’s animated adventures… Bruce Timm has some bad news for you.

In an interview with Think McFly Think at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo, Timm said that slow sales are grounding any sequels to the Wonder Woman and Green Lantern animated features to a halt.

“We had originally planned to do sequels for Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, but Wonder Woman’s sales started out extremely slow and then over time were eventually able to catch up to probably Justice League Frontier,” Timm said. “The execs decided because it wasn’t able to sell quickly right away, where as Justice League was, that there wouldn’t be any more female super hero films right now. We were developing and hoping to get started on a Batgirl film based on Year One, but because of Wonder Woman’s slow sales start, that won’t be happening now.”

Timm was a bit more hopeful when it came to Hal Jordan, considering the Ryan Reynolds film is due out soon. “With Green Lantern, it didn’t perform nearly as well as what they had hoped it would. In the long run it eventually made its money back, but the sales weren’t there right away during its release. Hopefully with the release of the Live Action film next year, that will open up the doors for more Green Lantern relate material.”

What’s interesting to me about this statement is the Wonder Woman quote — namely, that it reflects on female superheroes more than it does the individual character. I’m curious, what are the financial standards for these films, in the first place? Because they’re straight-to-DVD, it’s clear they won’t be getting the same sorts of marketing attention or even cash flow opportunities that a traditional film would. (In the age of Redbox, you can rent these things for a dollar a pop. How many copies would that sell?) And specifically in the case of Wonder Woman, is it because of her status as “the first” that’s keeping other female superheroes at bay? What say you, ‘Rama readers?