Jim McCann was once a mild-mannered Marvel Comics marketing whiz, but now he’s giving it a go as a full-time freelance writer. He’s writing the ongoing Hawkeye and Mockingbird for Marvel, but also writing something completely different for Archaia: Return of the Dapper Men, a fairy tale about a world with only children that sees 314 dapper men fall from the sky to set the world right. It sports unconventional decoupage art from Janet Lee, and the publisher released the cover art today:

Did we mentioned this cover is designed by multiple-time Eisner-winner letter and designer Todd Klein? Yep.

Watch our video interview with Lee on her process here; our interview with Archaia editor-in-chief Stephen Christy is here.

At one point, it seemed too weird (or, depending on your perspective, awesome) to exist: a big-budget Broadway musical about Spider-Man, with music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge from U2.

Not only is it real, we’ve finally got an official opening date for Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark after several various delays — previews start on November 14, with an opening date just in time for the holidays, December 21. (Sadly, not in time for this year’s New York Comic Con.) With an America Express pre-sale starting in three days on the official Web site, it looks like these dates just might stick.

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Earlier this week, confusion spread throughout the blogosphere on the format of DC’s Earth One line of original graphic novels, based on statements made more than two weeks ago by J. Michael Straczynski during the DC Comics Superman panel at Comic-Con International: San Diego. J. Caleb Mozzocco summed up the situation here earlier today.

Basically, folks got confused as to what the planned release schedule for the comic book Superman: Earth One was, due to details in a couple of live recaps of the panels — one by CBR, one by me here at Newsarama. Here’s what CBR had:

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“No one else can do much more”: That’s R.C. Harvey talking about the characters of Sherman’s Lagoon raising awareness about the BP oil spill in this piece for The Comics Journal examining the ways various newspaper comics and cartoons have confronted the ecological disaster.

So, what’s up with the Earth-One line, exactly?: No one knows for sure, apparently. Well, maybe that’ s not quite true, but a lot of folks were trying to figure it out over the course of the last few days. When DC Comics announced a new line of new reader friendly comics by top creators with the old pre-Crisis branding of “Earth-One” last year, they set a lot of tongues a-wagging (and fingers a-typing). Not simply because of the stories, but the way in which DC was planning to publish them—a series of original graphic novels, bypassing the traditional serial publication in stapled comics format. Well, friend of the blog Kevin Huxford noticed something odd from panel reports coming out of San Diego, Johanna Draper Carlson wondered about what sounded like a change in plans (noting that the management has changed between the original announcement and now) and then Comics Beat’s Heidi MacDonald asked DC about it and got a not-terribly-specific reply, and more and more blogs took note. Finally, JDC offers a follow-up with some lessons to learn here. (Speaking of the upcoming Earth-One books, doesn’t the new new Batman costume look an awful lot like the one designed for the Batman: Earth-One series?)

Everyone knows women love to shop though, am I right, guys?: The New York Times puts together a story stating the obvious, although the twist here is that some women shop for things you (or New York Times editors?) would think only men would shop for. The aforementioned Heidi MacDonald, who was apparently interviewed for the piece, notes an obvious problem with the article. And while I’m linking to The Beat like crazy, attaching myself like a remora to MacDonald’s shark-like blogging, here’s another gynocentric piece, linking to a couple of very talented cartoonists’ comics about Comic-Con.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahah!: (Inhale) Ahahahahahahahahahahah!

“It also reminds the reader that a large part of the superhero formula used to be protecting the innocent as opposed to simply reacting to personal danger”: You know, for a guy who doesn’t consider himself a superhero guy, Tom Spurgeon sure writes very well about the genre, as evidenced in this review of Invincible Iron Man Annual #1, part of a modern super-comic series that Spurgeon regularly name-checks as being one he follows and enjoys on his Comics Reporter blog.

Attention, poozers! We have Kilowog…or do we?

Filmdrunk has this picture up, which was originally posted on ComicBookMovie of the GLC’s toughest member from Sector 674. Now, this isn’t confirmed by any means, but it’s not that much different from the concept art that has been floating around for some time. Though at first glance without my glasses, I see a sort of Zorg’s minions from The Fifth Element, but with a nice tan.

Readers, do you think this image is valid, as well as suitable for the image of Kilowog?

Bond. Frodo. You might have a home just yet.

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Spyglass Entertainment (which has co-financed some of the biggest movies of the last decade including the J. J. Abrams Star Trek and The Sixth Sense, as well as the recent comedy Dinner for Schmucks) is nearing a deal to run the legendary studio, which is also in a $4 billion debt. This is good news for Bond fans, as earlier this year Bond 23 was officially post-poned indefinitely. As well as LOTR fans who have been waiting patiently for Peter Jackson’s two Hobbit films.

As both fans of those franchises, I am pleased as punch to know that such a studio with a legacy won’t just fade away.

Wednesday Comics
Edited by Mark Chiarello with Chris Conroy
Published by DC Comics

One of DC Comics’ most interesting publishing projects in recent memory remains Wednesday Comics.  The concept was part throwback, part attempt to find alternative publishing models.  Each week, they published a broadsheet, folded in half and in half again.  When readers sprawled the sheets out to their fullest dimensions, 14” x 20”, they were treated to a humongous canvas, allowing the selected artists to showcase their ability on a larger scale than anything since the heyday of the Sunday newspaper strips (a format Wednesday Comics consciously emulated, with its newsprint production).  Now available in a collected hardcover edition, on much sturdier and shinier paper, Wednesday Comics remains an interesting project, though not nearly as interesting as in its original format.

Simply put, as it ran only twelve weeks, each story has only twelve pages of real estate to make its point.  Comics writers have been crafting some very engaging and witty short stories for decades upon decades, but there are still certain limitations on what you can do in twelve pages and many of the scripts here run up against those boundaries.  Few are outright poor, but even fewer are actually memorable in any way.  Much of the art is, fortunately, quite good, and the large size and quality paper does provide an effective showcase for the illustrators, making Wednesday Comics, ultimately, a project more suited to art-admirers than story-readers.

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It’s completely fair to refer to this week as “Scott Pilgrim week” — the movie’s out on Friday, the soundtrack and video game hit today, and we here at Newsarama ran this nifty feature with comments from Michael Cera, Jason Schwartzman, Edgar Wright and Bryan Lee O’Malley.

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Is the Twilight franchise about to lose some of its sparkle? Well, this week’s Archie & Friends #146 launches the two-part “Twilite” saga, in which two cute boys transfer to Archie and the gangs school. There’s Ivan, who looks a bit like the Edwin the Vampire character that all the gals are swooning over, and someone with pretty thick eyebrow named Jared.

In the past Archie comics developed a reputation for seeking to capitalize on a trend just after it’s started to lose its popularity, so this could be a bad sign for Twilight‘s staying power. Or not.

1 For $1: Aliens Vs. Predator: Dark Horse has a new round of bargain-priced reprints introduced to entice new readers to their line. This time the idea is classic #1 issues from throughout Dark Horse history. This week sees two such books—the first issue of the very first AVP series, and Sin City: The Hard Goodbye. The former is by Randy Stradley, Phil Norwood and Karl Story and the latter is, of course, by Frank Miller.

Bone: Tall Tales: This is probably the biggest release of the week. It’s a kinda-sorta continuation of Jeff Smith’s Bone saga, or at least some new stories set in his Bone-iverse. The work of Smith and Tom Sniegoski, this 130-page collection features new and previously-published material, including the story of Boneville’s founder, Big Johnson Bone. It’s available in both a $23 hardcover and an $11 trade paperback.

Dungeons & Dragons #0: Here’s another too-good-a-price-not-to-buy book, a special $1 issue featuring two stories by John Rogers, Alex Irvine, Adrea DiVito and Peter Bergting that will lead into publisher IDW’s November-launching D&D series.

Felix the Cat’s Greatest Comic Book Tails: Here’s a welcome bit of comics history, and a good example of why we’re living in the Golden Age of Reprints. This $35, 225-page hardcover collects a heaping helping of Otto Messmer’s Felix stories for Dell and Harvey, along with introductions from Don Oriolo (son of Joe) and Craig Yoe.
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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!

Bruce Wayne is back — and he’s a man on a mission.

Grant Morrison spoke with the LA Times about his upcoming series, Batman Inc., as well as his personal philosophies on Bruce Wayne’s personality — “A man who is that advanced in meditation and martial arts and yoga is not going to be a one-note vigilante crime fighter,” he told Geoff Boucher — as well as the wide breadth of stories previously told with the character.

The two news bits of note in this story are the fact that Bruce will be bringing back the yellow oval symbol to his uniform, last seen around the No Man’s Land saga; and the fact that Morrison’s first 12 issues will be “team-ups with Batman and different characters as he traveling the world and kind of training people.”

One character confirmed for the series will be El Gaucho, who agrees with Batman’s ideals if not his methods, as well as Knight and Squire.

“At the end we found out what that’s all about; it’s not just habit or routine,” Morrison said. “He actually has a big agenda. That leads into where I’m taking this. At the end of the ‘first season’ I want to wind up with a really enormous Batman story. Everything is building up to that kind of climatic arc.”

Check out the rest of the article here. Batman Inc. #1, which will be drawn by Yanick Paquette, is scheduled for October, along with David Finch’s Batman: The Dark Knight #1 seen above.

[Via the Source]

“I am the Sandman. And none can escape my dark dreams.”

I am floored by this. I am even more floored by the fact I will have a week to lust have some great art brought to you, and me, by the ComicTWART guys. Chris Samnee, who has been mentioned more than once on blog@, comes today with his rendetion of Wesley Dodds aka the Golden Age Sandman.

Samnee states, “I feel like I’ve drawn Sandman a bunch, so I tried to do something a bit different that what I’ve done before. Can you find all the Sandmans?” I found four: Wesley, Dream, Sandy, and Garret Sanford.

The dynamic angle and great use of lighting makes this just jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Dian would be proud that Samnee made her man look so good.

MW
Written & Illustrated by Osamu Tezuka
Translated by Camellia Nieh
Published by Vertical

Osamu Tezuka, the godfather of manga, is one of my favorite comics creators, largely because his work simply can’t be pinned down.  After rising to prominence with the adventurous pop fun of Astro Boy, Tezuka’s work included a lifelong (literally) quest for immortality in Phoenix, medical thrillers such as Black Jack or Ode to Kirohito, fantastical historical fiction like Adolf, and several of the bleakest portraits of man’s cold inhumanity, including Apollo’s Song and MW.

MW tells of a young man, Yuki, who was exposed to minute traces of a chemical weapon – the titular MW – as a young boy.  Doomed to a slow death, Yuki resorts to kidnapping, murder, extortion and worse, perhaps losing all sense of morality from the gas, or perhaps simply filled with hatred over his fate.  Along the way, he is both helped and hindered by a priest named Father Garai.  Garai’s lustful attraction to Yuki prevents him from turning Yuki over to the authorities, though he offers several other rationalizations as to why he shelters a killer.  (A flashback involving Garai and Yuki’s encounter in a cave before exposure to the MW gas offers another possible motive for Yuki’s amorality.)

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Green Hornet: Year One debuted from Dynamite Entertainment this past March, with Matt Wagner writing and Aaron Campbell on art. The first five issues featured covers from Astonishing X-Men and Planetary artist John Cassaday, but Wagner himself slides into the role as of September’s issue #6, as announced today by the publisher.

Wager, of course, is best known as a writer and an artist, from work on his creations Mage and Grendel. Green Hornet: Year One is just one of many (and we do mean many) comics — including Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet, The Green Hornet Strikes, Kevin Smith’s Kato, Green Hornet: Parallel Lives, Kato Origins, Green Hornet Golden Age Remastered — being released by Dynamite in anticipation of January 2011′s Green Hornet feature film, starring Seth Rogen. Covers for #7 and #8 are after the jump.

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By Julie Opipari

Kekkaishi Vol 22
Story and art by Yellow Tanabe
Published by Viz Media
Review by Julie Opipari

I just love Kekkaishi. Even when I was getting a sinking feeling in my gut that this story arc was going to wander off into territory that I wouldn’t like, Yellow Tanabe managed to keep me engrossed in the plot. I hate the current villain and find her the worst kind of one-dimensional stereo-type, but I like the other new character, Yugami. Even after hating him at first! Saiko, on the other hand, is just annoying and a very shallow excuse for an opponent.

The thing I like the best about Kekkaishi is how Tokine and Yoshimori interact with each other. They have been together for all of their lives, and they are very dependant on each other, whether they want to admit it or not. Being together makes the other stronger, and even if they occasionally bicker, they always have each other’s back. They are a team, and if one of them is not there, the other is diminished.

When Tokine is whisked off to be interrogated by the Shadow Organization, Tokine’s friends are immediately worried about her. Her questioning is very unusual, and when her grandmother learns that she’s been spirited off to Headless Island, she is very concerned about Tokine’s welfare. When Yoshimori and Hatori arrive at the island with the proper documents to have her released, they stumble upon a scene of chaos and confusion. There is something shady going on at Headless Island, and if they don’t hurry up and figure out what it is, they are all going to get themselves killed!

I love, love, love Yoshimori. He is impulsive and has the temper of a bottle rocket, but he is always ready and willing to put himself in harm’s way to save his friends. And he loves to bake! This guy has got it all! He even has some super-duper panels where he looks and sounds really, really cool! I don’t care what anyone else says, he is clearly maturing and willing to take responsibility for his, and everyone else’s, actions.

It is clear that the troubles with the Shadow Organization run deep, and that there isn’t anyone to be trusted. I am finding this story arc intriguing and suspenseful, even though Masamori is nowhere to be seen. ‘Cause if there is one character who I love more than Yoshimori, it’s his older, much more dangerous brother, Masamori. I hope he shows up again soon! If you enjoy action titles with wonderful dashes of humor, I can’t recommend Kekkaishi highly enough. It rocks!

When Julie Opipari isn’t mucking around the barn, she can be found trying to make a dent in the massive pile of manga that keeps following her home from the bookstore.  Not wiling to admit she has a problem, she blissfully continues to anticipate the latest releases despite the cries of agony from her credit card.  She cheerfully blames her addiction on the stresses of college and post traumatic work disorder, and is grateful that her family grumbles only occasionally about the amount of time she spends buried in her books. In addition to reading Your Manga Minute every Wednesday, you can read more of Julie’s work on her blog, Manga Maniac Cafe.

It began on the planet Colu, a world of green-skinned humanoids with advanced brains who prized intelligence and logic above all else. In the Coluan scale of measurement, the average human being has a 6th-level intelligence and the average Coluan has anywhere from an 8th-level to 10th-level intelligence. But one Coluan named Vril Dox was born with a 12th-level intelligence and then installed augmentations to his brain to increase it even further. Earning the nickname of “Brainiac” among his people, this villain embarked on a quest to gather all knowledge in the universe.

Exploring the galaxy in his famous (and way creepy) skull-ship, Brainiac would go from one planet to another, absorbing its information and then destroying the world so that the knowledge he’d taken from it would now be more precious. He also made a habit of shrinking down entire cities from each world and imprisoning them in bottle-like force field containers, keeping the millions of still-living inhabitants as test subjects. To help in his exploration, Brainiac launched several probes and avatars that acted with his basic personality. A few of these avatars fought Superman and recently he made an enemy of the true Brainiac himself. A dangerous thing since, despite his claims that he prizes logic and information above all else, Brainiac is still capable of feeling hatred for his enemies.

He’s creepy, he’s powerful, he’s smart and he does not have any capacity for mercy. He also predates the slang term “brainiac” by a couple of decades and some believe that he is the direct origin of the term (a Computer kit also called Brainiac predated the comic book character, but it wasn’t as popular and didn’t last as long). Yet despite this notoriety and his long-standing status as one of Superman’s greatest enemies, the villain from Colu has not always had the best tailor. So why don’t we look back at this villain’s wardrobe?

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Slow news day…s. Slow news days. Anyway, here are a couple of links you could follow. If you want. No pressure.

Well I bet she and her publishers hope so, anyway: “Is Michigan-born author’s vampire series the next ‘Twilight’?”

No, no it probably isn’t:“The geeks are pulling Hollywood’s strings right now, and that’s not a good thing”

Sure, I’d wear that: Paul Hornschemeir shows off his latest (and greatest…?) t shirt design, in the process of sharing horrible news about the triceratops.

Noah Van Sciver draws a Batman comic: Please note, Noah Van Sciver is not the Van Sciver who drew this. (Via Flog)

Has Kevin Church found a way to freshen up the Garfield Minus meme?: I think he may have. I particularly like the positioning of the addition, as it seems like Jon’s new furry friend is walking around on his hands and knees.

Kate Beaton’s big superhero news: The cartoonist is contributing to Marvel Strange Tales, and she’s not going to be drawing Wolverine, Cyclops or Storm. She drew them in the first of these two superhero strips though.

News broke late Friday night that Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s creator-owned four-issue limited series Nemesis has been optioned as a film by 20th Century Fox, with Top Gun and Enemy of the State director Tony Scott attached.

For the last few days, Millar has been teasing a major forthcoming announcement on his Twitter, calling it his “biggest news ever.” The news surfaced first on comic book gossip site Bleeding Cool, and was later confirmed on Hollywood industry news blog Deadline.

In 2008, Millar’s Top Cow miniseries Wanted was adapted for the big screen by director Timur Bekmambetov and starring Angelina Jolie. Earlier this year, Kick-Ass, another Millar-written Marvel Icon series, saw a movie from current X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn. Scott is by far the most seasoned director of the three, with his first major feature film being 1983′s The Hunger, and credits including Beverly Hills Cop II, Days of Thunder, Man on Fire and 2009′s The Taking of Pelham 123. Scott, brother of fellow noted director Ridley Scott, has worked extensively with actor Denzel Washington, with their fifth collaboration, Unstoppable, slated for November.

Nemesis debuted in March, with a promotional tagline of “what if Batman was the Joker?” Thus far, two issues have been released, with a third scheduled to be out in September.

It’s not my fault this time!

Okay, so maybe I could have been a little more prepared for J.M. DeMatteis’ vacation, but only if I’d had access to my own time sphere so that I could find out about it before it happened. And if I had a time sphere, then none of my articles would ever be late, and I’d already know who the Black Beetle is!

Yeah, that’s right, I haven’t forgotten about that one.

Anyway, after returning to work refreshed and ready to razz the interviewer, DeMatteis caught up with me today about his and Keith Giffen’s most recent issue of Booster Gold, and talked about all manner of bwa-ha-happenings in Booster’s world. Join us, will you? (more…)

Tubular senses tingling!

Artist Dean Fraser, most notably known for his blog of characters drawn in Simpsons style (Springfield Punx) has something cool cooking up. While not his own creation, the idea was too good not to talk about. “A young artist named Gerardo recently sent me a neat drawing of his (The American Turtle) based on a story that he and a friend are working on,” Dean explains. “They call it “Marvel Mirage”; a mash-up of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Marvel characters.” He continues with, “[Gerardo] gave me descriptions of the other characters and asked me if I would do up some SP style images for them. I don’t always do this, but I remembered the fun I had at 14 with this kind of thing, so I was more than happy to play around with it myself and throw something together.”

Okay, now who didn’t do something like this growing up. Especially like me, a progeny of the early 80′s. From left to right we have the Iron Turtle (makes sense since Donatello was the brains of the operation), the American Turtle (Leo was always the leader), Shellowine (Raph was the hothead and sometimes the jerk), and Shellpool (perfect fit with Mike being the wisecrack). A better and bigger image of the brothers can be found here.

Though the mash-up doesn’t stop there. Dean posted a follow-up with another creation: Shredneto, and yes, that is exactly who you think it is.

So, I can’t help but wonder who Splinter or April or even Kang could be paired and mixed with. Though if Baxter Stockman would be paired with the Lizard, you could have “Dragonfly”.

See what I did there?

Be sure to also check out Dean’s blog for tons of cool Simponsque art.