This week’s Savage Dragon #162 gives readers not only a look into the way the world is reacting to Savage Dragon’s sudden turn to evil (through the eyes of OverLord, the Deadly Duo and the police force) but also the first (very, very vague) hint that cracks may be starting to form in Emperor Kurr’s psyche, and that “our” Dragon may not be truly gone. To that end, let’s see what the tag team of myself and Savage Dragon super-fan Gavin Higginbotham can extract from creator Erik Larsen this month…!

Gavin Higginbotham: We see Captain Battle and Silver Streak have come to Chicago now that they’ve heard about Daredevil’s plight? Does this mean that those two (and possibly more Golden Age heroes) are sticking around for the war with Emperor Kurr?

Erik Larsen: It’s not as clean as all that. The Emperor Dragon story doesn’t stay in one place quite so much so it’s not as though heroes can just hang out in Chicago and grab him. In this issue, for example, he’s in Detroit and later on he’ll be in a few other locations. It’s no easy task to track him down. (more…)

The X-Files/30 Days of Night #1 (of 6)
Written by Steve Niles & Adam Jones
Illustrated by Tom Mandrake
Colored by Darlene Royer
Lettered by Ed Dukeshire
Cover art by Andrea Sorrentino; Sam Kieth; or Tom Mandrake & JD Mettler
Published by DC/Wildstorm and IDW

30 Days of Night fans be warned: Niles and Jones use the vampires only in brief teases at the issue’s open and close, preferring to focus on the FBI agents’ investigation.  Capturing the playful banter between Mulder and Scully, the issue reads like a lost episode of the X-Files series.  But they leave little doubt that Mulder and Scully are headed into big trouble.

Tom Mandrake draws it up beautifully, providing creepy imagery and solid likenesses of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.  If Mandrake has one shortcoming, he never seems to attempt that playfully wry grin of Duchovny’s, which is such a large part of Mulder’s charm and deadpan humor.

A nice solid debut issue, The X-Files/30 Days of Night #1 introduces its scenario – Alaska, after the sun is set for a month-long chunk of winter, inhabited by vampires – and its characters – FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully – so that readers of either franchise can quickly and easily leap into this crossover miniseries.  It’s almost certain to fully entertain fans of either franchise.

Despite the careers that many Star Wars alums have had — you’ve seen Harrison Ford, you’ve seen Mark Hamill, you’ve even seen Carrie Fischer — it looks like one major actor’s relationship with George Lucas and Company has turned to the Dark Side.

David Prowse, who played Darth Vader, has apparently “not been invited” to the Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando. The actor posted this on his web site:

“It is with regret that I have been informed by my friends at C2 Ventures, Ben and Phillip, that I am not to be invited to C5 this year or any other Lucas Film associated events. After enquiring, the only thing I have been told is that I have ‘burnt too many bridges between Lucas Film and myself’ – no other reason given…I have also been advised by the promoter of Paris Manga in September that LFL (Lucas Film Limited) have requested no photo opportunities with the 501 Squadron, even though I am commander in chief of the 501″

Now, look. I’m not privy to the inner workings of LucasFilm or its subsidiaries. Maybe David Prowse did something horrible, like leaving a dead animal on Lucas’s desk or something. (Is complaining about your voice not getting into the final cut really an offense that’s worth getting cut out of the gold mine?) Otherwise, like the fine folks at GeekTwins say, this is pretty much criminal — especially since the actor told /Film he hasn’t seen a single residual check for his work. His work that contributed to a multi-billion dollar franchise. If that’s accurate, can somebody Force Choke a little bit of cash out for this guy? And barring that, at least a little bit of respect?

[Hat-tip to the newly-renamed Blastr]

Hopefully there’s a cover of her punching Hitler: “Best-selling comic book team takes on Anne Frank biography”

“With half a dozen original songs, including pieces from Silver Lake’s Beck, ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ will live and die by its music as much as its action and script”: This article on the LA Times‘ Hero Complex blog notes that not only is Scott Pilgrim a comic book movie, “it’s arguably this summer’s most rock ‘n’ roll-centric film,” and interviews director Edgar Wright and SP creator Bryan Lee O’Malley about the way Scott’s band Sex Bob-Omb sounds. Interesting article, but what’s with calling Times New Viking “a Midwest punk band?” They’re from Columbus, Ohio, dammit.  Respect the Buckeye State, coast-dweller.

Oh, so that’s why Marvel keeps launching new Avengers titles: “Four Avengers in Top 10 in June”

Attention, process junkies!: Vertigo’s Graphic Content blog is running a series of behind the scenes pieces on Matt Kindt’s creation of his new graphic novel, Revolver. Here’s part one, and here’s part two and here’s part three. I trust you can find any future installments on your own.

“Anyway, the Heroic Age is a big success with me, to the point of seeking out the bannered covers and giving them a flip-through”: Blogger Johanna Draper Carlson, one of the many readers who seems like they want to love a whole bunch of super-comics but often find themselves disappointed with what the major publishers pump out, is really digging Marvel’s new “Heroic Age” branded direction, as she discusses in this post surveying some of the new titles.

“[I]f I didn’t read another issue ever, I wouldn’t die, but I’d rather read this then, say, get a poke in the eye, so that’s like competently GOOD”: Savage Critic chieftan Brian Hibbs reviews a bunch of recent comics, the above is his assesment of Avengers: The Children’s Crusade. He tackles mostly Marvel titles, with a few Batman comics thrown in. How do you guys feel about Batman: The Odyssey, by the way? I’m trade-waiting it, but I’ve been hoping it turns out to be All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder, only more Neal Adamsy.

Reason #451 Why I Love Tucker Stone Madly: In this installment of his Comics Of The Weak column, he reviews a mess of July 8 releases in light of Mark Waid’s infamous tweet, couching his criticism in whether or not the book in question might be the one that broke Waid.

Time to take attendance, readers. Who’s going to San Diego? Who’s not? Any announcements, exclusives, or appearances that you anticipate? Any stories to share? Who are the first time attendees? Let’s talk about it.

What’s that? Okay, fine. One story. At San Diego in 2007, it’s a fact that Scott Licina (former V.P. of Fangoria Entertainment, current chieftain of all things Kik Axe Entertainment), Mark Kidwell (writer and artist of “Bump”, writer of “Frank Frazetta’s Dark Kingdom”, etc.), Jason Jensen (colorist for everything from Chaos! to Archie), producer Patrick Durham and I made a cab driver laugh so hard that he took money off of our fare. If you want hear the details, catch me at a convention and I’ll tell you.

Until then, let’s talk SDCC.

Want to see what some live-action hammer time will look like? Then check out Marvel‘s first image of Thor, Odin and Loki in the upcoming film. Starring Chris Hemsworth at Thor, Anthony Hopkins at Odin, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki, the movie is due out May 6, 2011.

Stone by day, warriors by night… but now, it looks like the spell is broken — and the GARGOYLES WILL LIVE AGAIN!

Well, at least maybe. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Disney may be bringing back the defenders of the night, as they discuss “an untitled gargoyle project” that seems, well, awfully like the superlative Gargoyles cartoon franchise by Spectacular Spider-Man showrunner Greg Weisman. (It too has a spectacular opening sequence. Check it.) Here’s the nitty-gritty from THR:

“The project seeks to build a mythology around the carvings, originally designed in medieval times to act as spouts but later took on roles as powerful symbols to ward off or attract evil. The story is being developed, but it is known to be set in modern times.”

Zoe Green, who worked on Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment on a project called Tigress, is in negotiations for the film, whatever it ends up being. The project will be produced by the Donners’ Co. — that’s right, the team that brought you the X-Men flicks and Constantine. So, with that pedigree confirmed, is the return of Goliath, Hudson and the rest of the stone-cold warriors of the night? Or is Disney just yanking our supernatural chain? Sound off!

UPDATE: Boooooo. Reader Lumpmoose correctly notes that Variety has shot down our hopes for a reborn Gargoyles flick. The project is apparently NOT affiliated with the cartoon. Baffling.

It looks like the Batman has a new force directing him through the streets of Gotham: Scott Snyder.

DC’s blog, the Source, has a post announcing the American Vampire writer will be taking over the title, presumably after current writer David Hine. In addition, the blog has announced that Snyder is now a DC exclusive writer.

“I want to play things pretty close to the vest for now, but I can tell you that it’ll star Batman, and will focus heavily on his CSI work and hardcore mysteries set around Gotham,” Snyder said on the blog, about his upcoming work. “The back-up will center on Commissioner Gordon and involve a certain case – and a dark figure – from his past that comes back to haunt him in present day Gotham. The feature and back-up will be stand-alone, but will affect and inform each other.”

Now, this announcement interests me in a couple of ways. First and foremost, considering the number of exclusives that DC has been racking up this year — including people like Jeff Lemire, Paul Cornell and David Finch — it feels like DC is really upping its game in terms of getting some “different” voices onboard (as opposed to the more simpatico voices of the ever-popular Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi, Sterling Gates and James Robinson).

And perhaps even more important — this is DC really utilizing the creative potential of its Vertigo crew members. Years ago, it looked like Jason Aaron was seen only as a Vertigo guy — now he’s one of the big fish over at Marvel, and I imagine DC is kicking themselves over it. But considering Vertigo is one of the biggest high-concept houses in comics, this could be the beginning of DC really remembering where its cutting edge lies. What do you think, ‘Rama readers? Are you excited to see the American Vampire scribe sink his teeth into Gotham City? Sound off!

Jonah Hex: No Way Back
Written by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti
Illustrated by Tony DeZuniga with John Stanisci
Colored by Rob Schwager
Lettered by Rob Leigh
Published by DC

To capitalize on the Jonah Hex film, DC didn’t push out the raw volume of material that Marvel glutted the market with during Iron Man II’s release.  Perhaps it was in DC’s best interest – the movie’s getting panned pretty harshly (enough so that I’m planning to skip its theatrical run; though to be fair to Jonah, I kind of wished I’d passed on Iron Man II).

In addition to the (by my count) nine trade paperbacks of the current monthly Jonah Hex series, DC has one archival trade, one Showcase collection, and this book – a brand-new hardcover, original graphic novel, written by the writing team of the current Hex monthly and illustrated by Tony DeZuniga, the man who drew Hex’s first comic adventure back in 1972, is the one major highlight of DC’s campaign to find a few readers on the make for more scarred western gunslingers after Mr. Brolin’s escapades.

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MTV has a clip up from the upcoming animated Jonah Hex short film, and I have to tell you — the automatic bad vibes I got from the live action movie trailer? I think I’m picking up the exact opposite here.

Thomas Jane — who had originally lobbied for the role of Hex in the live-action film with a sick-looking makeup job, but was eventually edged out by Josh Brolin — is doing the voice-acting for Hex, who based on the above images is one hard-hitting son of a gun. The short is due out with the Batman: Under the Red Hood DVD on July 27.

Paging Edward Cullen — there’s some people from Dark Horse who’d like to have a word with you. I hear they have one heck of a backhand.

But seriously, how funny is this ad for Baltimore: The Plague Ships? The Mike Mignola-helmed book, as you can see above, is due out on August 4. I think I’m going to take a look just based on this snarky promo alone.

It looks like Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona’s band of rebellious youths are running towards a January production start date.

Production Weekly has reported that the Marvel adaptation for Runaways will be filming from January to July 2011.

The film centers on the children of the Pride, a group of Los Angeles-based supervillains from every genre you can think of. When the children discover their parents’ evildoing, however, they make a break for it, even as they exhibit superpowers based on their parents’ legacy.

Entertainment Weekly had stated that Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist director Peter Sollett was on the short list for directing, and Deadline had said No Heroics creator Drew Pearce to write the film.

[Hat-tip to Lan Pitts for the heads-up]

If you thought comic book movie-themed motorcycle suits couldn’t get cooler/more ridiculous than last fall’s Dark Knight motorcycle suit, get ready to have your face blown off by the pure power of brightly colored leather:

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It’s been, what, three-and-a-half months since Blackest Night #8? If you’re missing the cold, gray touch of the Black Lanterns, well, looks like you don’t have long to wait. DC Comics offered up this teaser image today on their official blog The Source, with no comment other than the subject title: “What is October’s RETURN OF THE BLACK LANTERNS?”

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After three series — the six-part Agents of Atlas mini, the 11-issue Agents of Atlas ongoing, and the current monthly Atlas — it looks like Jeff Parker’s run on the 1950s Marvel Comics characters is ending with September’s Atlas #5.

The news was revealed by no less of a source than Parker himself, in an interview published today by ComicsAlliance (they interviewed Gorilla Man, too, which is a pretty good coup). The writer said that it was his choice to end the book — whose most recent iteration started in May — and called the current 3-D man storyline “a definite highwater mark.”

It’s a good bet the characters will stick around the Marvel Universe after the series, written by Parker and penciled by Gabriel Hardma, end — Atlas member Gorilla Man is featured in a solo three-issue miniseries starting this week, read a preview here and an article about it here. Namora starred in a one-shot last month.

This week’s chapter of Marvel’s Daredevil-centric “street-level” crossover event “Shadowland” comes in the form of Daredevil #508,  by Andy Diggle, Antony Johnson, Roberto de la Torre and company. Has Ol’ Horn Head lost his head? Has Marvel’s most famous lawyer become an executioner? I don’t know! But you might! Once you read “Shadowland.”

And if you’re not interested in finding out how diabolical the person who calls himself Daredevil is being these days, well there are plenty of other comics out this week  as well. For example…

Age of Reptiles: Journey #4: Ricardo Delgado wraps up his four-issue series following a pack of herbivores and they migrate through dangerous dinosaur times. Which means we shouldn’t be too far away from a trade collection now. Take a look here.

Astro City: Silver Agent #1: Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson kick off a two-part miniseries starring The Silver Agent and featuring a journey through time. It’s a $4 comic.

Batman #701: Grant Morrison briefly re-takes Batman and re-teams with Tony Daniel for the first half of a two-part story revealing what happened between the moment Batman seemingly died in an exploding helicopter at the end of “Batman: RIP” and the time he “died” in Final Crisis by getting the Omega-eye from DC’s god of evil.

Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps Vol. 1-Vol. 2: You guys, DC is going to make so much money off this thing! Last week they shipped three hardcover collections of various Blackest Night books and now, the very next week, here’s two more! These collect trios of the three-part Blackest Night miniseries focusing on different characters. The $25, 260-page Vol. 1 features Batman, Superman and The Titans while the $25, 240 page Vol. 2 features The Flash, Wonder Woman and the Justice Society of America.

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Here we go again.

Now since the Christopher Columbus rumor was debunked, there’s another interesting rumor floating around with Jonathan “the other” Nolan helming the Supes’ reboot. According to Geek Tyrant, Jonathan Nolan is the all-but-confirmed director. This would explain Nolan taking the producer’s role, as well as be the guiding hand in his brother’s film, should he need one.

Now of course we should take this with a grain of salt since I’m sure they are trying to find the right director for the project, but keep your ears to the ground on this one.

Iconic director Hayao Miyazaki has some coarse words about Apple’s iPad. I find it interesting with somebody who is so innovative to turn away from something like this. Yet, Miyazaki compared iPad use to masturbation in a recent interview with a Japanese publication, Neppuu.

“For me, there is no feeling of admiration or no excitement whatsoever,” Miyazaki reportedly said about the iPad, which he dubbed a “game machine-type thing” that people use by “stroking with strange gestures”. “It’s disgusting. On trains, the number of those people doing that strange masturbation-like gesture is multiplying.”

Now it has to be noted that Miyazaki-san isn’t just slamming the iPad or Apple, apparently he also said he doesn’t have a DVD player, a computer, fax machine (do people use those anyways?) or knows how to use a video camera.

I find it odd that somebody in his field does not own these things. Now, I’m sure he understands how to a computer, but the rest just astounds me.

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!

[via Press Release]

OUR PLEDGE TO YOU: ALL COMICS, ALL THE TIME!
Your guide to signings, panels, new books, freebies, sales and more!
JULY 12 2010, SEATTLE, WA — Comic-Con is upon us, and it is time to spill the beans on some major news. Fantagraphics Books is excited to announce that at this year’s show we will have no celebrity tie-ins, no comic adaptations of summer blockbusters, no TV show spinoffs, no videogame companion books, and no major announcements regarding digital distribution.
We do, however, pledge to deliver more cartoonists, more classic comics collections, more original literary graphic novels, more high-quality foreign reprints of international cartooning, more graphic memoirs, more offbeat humor books, more envelope-pushing anthologies, and more and better books-about-comics and comics history than any other publisher on the floor.
Next week, Fantagraphics Books will close up shop in Seattle and relocate for one week to San Diego, CA for the 2010 Comic-Con International (to booth #1718, to be exact). With over 20 authors signing throughout the weekend – including the first-ever U.S. appearance by MOTO HAGIO, founder of Shojo Manga, as well as American comix legends CAROL TYLER, PETER BAGGE, TONY MILLIONAIRE ,THE HERNANDEZ BROTHERS and many others – as well as over a dozen new books debuting at the show, the weekend promises to be an exciting one for fans of comic books and graphic novels. Here is your guide to Fantagraphics Books’ signings, book debuts, panels and much more!

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