1. Produce a body of work.
2. Potentially alienate your industry in a series of interviews.
3. Make music.

Quick . . . who is it?

[Alan Moore photo by Jose Villarubia, via Swindle Magazine]

“The opposite of the superhero is the Amish not just because the superhero is violent and the Amish are not, but because the superhero doesn’t exist, and the Amish do”: Noah Berlatsky talks violence, pacifism, religion and superheroics after reading The War of The Lamb by pacifist theologian John Howard Yoder and JLA: The Nail by Alan Davis and Mark Farmer. It’s been over a decade since I read the latter, and Elseworld’s story about a the DC Universe evolving with Superman off the board until the climax, but all I really remember about it was a ton of great artwork, and what a kick it was to see Davis drawing pretty much every character DC owns. That, and the Jimmy Olsen/Amish Superman climax coming out of nowhere.

Tucker Stone does something completely insane, as is his wont: Specifically, he reads as many new comic book and graphic novel releases in a given week that he can possibly find, and then reviews them all in one giant, epic post. I think that makes Stone the David Blaine of online comics criticism. Which probably doesn’t sound like the compliment I mean it to be.

I still like his comics better, but Brandon Graham’s a hell of a blogger: In this post, he shares drawings of a Terminator skull, Madame Xanadu, Marian Churchland going muffin-power mad and an all-new Vertigo logo, plus points out a bunch of cool artwork. (Via Jounralista!)

Clint Eastwood as Superman? Namor?: MTV’s Splash Page has details about a superhero movie role Eastwood turned down (which turned out to be the superhero movie role, really). Eastwood would have made the ideal Jonah Hex. I wonder what superhero roles he could still play, now that he’s 80-years-old…? The Wizard Shazam? Alan Scott in a modern day JSA movie?

“Fantagraphics to Publish Lost William S. Burroughs Graphic Novel”: The headlines says it all, but this is probably the publishing news of the week.

DC button pushes blogger’s buttons: The DC Women Kicking Ass blog, dedicated to celebrating DC’s superheroines, was surprised to see a Wonder Woman-less 75th Anniversary button featuring Superman, Batman, Flash and Green Lantern. Was Wondy kicked out of “the Trinity”…? Well, if so, look at the bright side—it takes Flash and Green Lantern to replace her.

I hope the Avengers movie is exactly like this: Only for two hours.

Incredible Hulk Visionaries: Peter David v. 7
Written by Peter David with Tom Field
Penciled by Dale Keown, John Romita Sr., Ron Wagner & Gary Barker
Inked by Mark Farmer, Fred Fredericks, Mike Witherby, Al Milgrom & Joe Rubinstein
Colored by Glynis Oliver & Mike Thomas
Lettered by Joe Rosen, Brad K. Joyce & Mike Heisler
Published by Marvel Comics

Now I’m not the biggest superhero fan on the block, but writer Peter David’s twelve-year turn as writer of The Incredible Hulk stands out as one of the standards I look for when I do venture into superhero territory.  Visionaries v.7 collects eight issues from 1991-92 (one of those issues written by Tom Field, though Marvel might as well have skipped it since it’s not Peter David-written and doesn’t tie into David’s storyline at all – it’s pure inventory).

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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!

DC Comics publishes a lot of Batman comics. This November, the latest month they’ve released solicitations for, they plan to publish nine ongoing Batman comics, plus three issues of one-shots or miniseries featuring Batman, plus eight comics headlined by his various lieutenants and supporting characters, plus six team comics featuring a Batman. So there’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 26 Batman comics scheduled for the month of November,* depending on how you want to count them up (and I’m assuming you don’t want to count reprint material, because there is of course a whole mess of trades as well).

DC Comics also publishes a lot of comics based on video games. This November, they’ll be publishing six of ‘em**, which isn’t all that many, but accounts for about a third of their Wild Storm line.

Batman is the star of an extremely successful video game that was released last August, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and will star in a hotly anticipated sequel that will debut next year, Batman: Arkham City.

And yet DC has not published any comics based on that particular video game.
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Stephen King’s massive, still-unfolding, 28-years-and-running The Dark Tower novel series has gotten several comic book spinoffs at Marvel starting in 2007, and is now getting the mass media full-court press with both a film trilogy and television show from Universal Pictures and NBC Universal Television Entertainment.

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Are you ready to yield before Cap’s mighty shield? The Daily Mail has some new images up of a stuntman wearing the Red, White and Blue:

So what say you, Rama readers? This good, bad, ugly? Note that these images are of a stuntman, rather than Chris Evans himself. Still, there are some other images that definitely looks like Hydra following Cap. Got an opinion before the movie comes out next year? Sound off!

[Link via SuperheroHype]

I’ve never seen the term “foundation garment” used this many times before: R.C. Harvey may be a little late to the Wonder Woman costume discussion party, but he more than makes up for it by providing not only a smart discussion, but also some designs of his own. Please note this link is maybe not so safe for work.

Hopefully the final word on that Darwyn Cooke thing: Tom Spurgeon has the most level-headed response I’ve seen so far, and is worth a read not only for his characterization of how Cooke’s statement has been parsed in Internet nerd court, but also because of his point regarding a tension between formula and innovation in mainstream comics of the sort Cooke was discussing.

“The JLA’s unasked for answer to ALF“: That’s how Andrew Weiss characterizes his latest entry in to his “Nobody’s Favorite” series, the little blue dinosaur in an orange vest that worked with the version of the  Justice League that immediately preceded Grant Morrison and Howard Porter’s reboot. I can’t pretend to like The Yazz at all, but I was surprised at how decent those comics actually were once I’d recovered ‘em from discount back issue bins. At the very least, they were visually coherent, which is more than I can say for certain portions of the current volume of Justice League of America.

Every superhero visits there eventually right?: Writing for OC Weekly, Joe Vince lists his “Five Favorite Comic Book Visits to the Devil’s Playground,” occasioned by Wolverine’s visit in the recently released Wolverine #1.

Julian Fong is a one-man DC Direct: Check out this Comics Alliance gallery of Fong’s incredible custom-made Lego figures feature DC superheroes.

I hope this is what the younger, more inexperienced Batman of the Earth One graphic novels will be like: Carolyn Main draws a mildly NSFW five-panel Batman strip in which Alfred demonstrates his stoicism (Via Comics Alliance). This is probably a good opportunity to remind you that Carolyn Main is pretty awesome, and you can see much more of her work at her blog and on this here Twitter picture thingee.

I’ll second that: Writing for Techland, Douglas Wolk would like “More Weekly Comics, Please!” I’ve liked something about every one of DC’s weekly or weekly-ish comics (Well, except for Countdown, which was impossible to like), although I don’t think DC’s managed to perfect the formula again the way they did with 52. Maybe bi-weeklies are actually the way to go, or, a new go at the Action Comics Weekly format from the late eighties. Wolk has some pretty good advice for the big publishers:

The solution seems relatively straightforward: run multiple serials side-by-side, commission the work far enough in advance that creative snags don’t cause publication delays, and make sure the stories are targeted to both their audience (e.g. in continuity) and their format (a satisfying amount of plot that keeps readers in suspense).

Usagi Yojimbo v.24: Return of the Black Soul
Written & Illustrated by Stan Sakai
Published by Dark Horse Comics

Whenever I buy a new comic, that book is automatically added to the bottom of my towering to-read pile and must wait its turn until it finally reaches the light of day and finds itself exposed to my withering glare.  (This method does not apply to review copies sent to me, as I try to finish those in something somewhat resembling a timely manner.)  Thus, the recurrence of stupendously late reviews by me: you’re witnessing the book that I bought six months after it dropped and didn’t read for another eight months after that finally digging its way to the surface.  One comic book series, however, is always excepted to this arduous months-long waiting process, because honestly, I just can’t wait to read it.  And that series is Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo.

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Remember the 2001 Greg Rucka comic Felon? What about Tony Harris and Dan Jolley’s Obergeist, from the same year? Both were fr0m Top Cow’s mostly forgotten Minotaur Press imprint. Not forgotten by Top Cow itself, evidently, as the publisher today confirmed plans announced at this year’s Comic-Con International: San Diego to bring back the line.

The first two new Minotaur titles are Echoes (by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Rahsan Ekedal) and Last Mortal (co-written by Filip Sablik and John Mahoney with art by Thomas Nachlik). Both premiere in October’s Top Cow First Look trade paperback, before coming out in single issues in late 2010 and early 2011.

If you’re wondering what the difference between a Minotaur Press book and the rest of their non-Top Cow Universe offerings, well, it does seem a bit vague, but here’s official word straight from the press release: Minotaur will “act a home for darker, more nuanced stories.” Alrighty.

Full text of the press release follows after the jump.

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Marvel Hercules might have the reason we celebrate Labor Day wrong, but he is right about one thing—new comic books won’t be in your local comic shop tomorrow, but will instead appear on Thursday.

So don’t walk in to your local comic shop expecting to buy new comics. You can still walk into your local comic shop to buy old comics though. I’m sure they would like that.

Let’s take a look at some of the books you’ll have to wait an extra 24 hours for this week.

1 For $1: Buffy The Vampire Slayer #1: This week’s crop of $1 reprints includes the first issue of Dark Horse’s first Buffy comic, written by Joss Whedon and Andi Watson and drawn by Joe Bennett and Rick Ketcham (Look for the Art Adams cover!) Please note that this is the first issue from the 1998 series, rather than the first issue of more recent, more popular and higher quality “Season 8″ series. One American dollar can also score you 1 For $1: Magnus Robot Fighter, which contains twenty-some pages of Russ Manning robot-fighting, or Image Firsts: Liberty Meadows #1, which reprints the first issue of Frank Cho’s signature work.

Alison Dare, The Heart of The Maiden: J. Torres and J. Bone’s girl adventurer Alison Dare, previously seen in a comic book series from Oni Press, is back, this time in an $11, 100-page original trade from Tundra Books.

Batgirl #14: Supergirl and two-dozen straight-from-the silver screen Draculas (Draculai?) guest-star in this issue by Bryan Q. Miller, Lee Garbett and Trevor Scott. Preview here.

Batman #703: Oh, super-comics. In June this issue was solicited as being a story about several of the original Batman’s allies celebrating his legacy in the wake of The Return of Bruce Wayne (which was then scheduled to wrap up September 1) featuring a script by Peter Milligan and art by Tony Daniel. In fact, that’s what dccomics.com still says about the issue. But on our main page, we have a preview of the comic in question which includes the page with the credits, and that says the issue is written by Fabian Nicieza with art by Cliff Richards (The Source backs this up). The summary of the story remains unchanged, although Bruce Wayne hasn’t actually finished returning yet;  not only did issue #6 not ship last week, but #5, which was originally scheduled for August 11, hasn’s shown up in shops yet either.

Billy The Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Ghastly Fiend of London #1: The title of this Eric Powell and Kyle Hotz comic has a lot of charm to it, but a more prosaic one might also be more descriptive—Billy The Kid vs. Jack The Ripper. Preview here.

Cuba: My Revolution: This gorgeous-looking original graphic novel about a Cuban artist’s coming of age during the Cuban Revolution, and the various frustrations and conflicts she must face when her belief in the revolution’s promise crashes against its reality. It’s written by Inverna Lockpez, a Cuban artist writing her first graphic novel (inspired by events from her own life), drawn by artist Dean Haspiel and told in “a lush red-and-black palette created by colorist José Villarrubia.”  That sure sounds good. It’s a $25, 145-page hardcover.

Daken: Dark Wolverine #1: Wolverine’s son gets a new #1 and a newer, uglier costume (Or is that his Dark Avengers get-up? I thought it had a Wolverine hat on it?) in this new series by the Marjorie Liu/Daniel Way writing team and artist Giuseppe Camuncoli. The first issue is an over-sized, $4 one. You can see a preview of it here.

Invaders Now #1: The latest of Alex Ross and Dynamite Entertainment’s Marvel projects reunites all of the original Invaders—all of whom are alive and well in the Marvel Universe at the moment—for a five-issue miniseries set in the present. Ross co-writes and provides the cover, Christos Gage co-writes and Caio Reiss pencils. It’s a $4 comic. Preview here.

Mighty Samson Archives Vol. 1: Dark Horse presents a $50, 215-page, hardcover collection of the first si issues of 1964′s Mighty Samson comics from Gold Key. In a post-apocalyptic future city of N’Yark, the remaining humans do battle with awesomely mutated monsters, with their own super-strong mutant champion Samson fighting for good. Otto Binder wrote all six issues, while Frank Thorne drew the first five. You can see a preview here. Also in the Expensive Reprint Material From Dark Horse category this week are Creepy Archives Vol. 7 and Conan: The Newspaper Strips #1.

Punisher Max: Hot Rods of Death #1: You know, this may just have the best title of any Punisher one-shot so far. Charlie Houston and Shawn Martinbrough pit Punny against a motorcycle gang in this 48-page, $5 one-shot.Preview here.

Scooby-Doo, Where are You? #1: After 159 issues, DC reboots their Scooby comic with a new title and new #1. Scott Gross, another in DC’s growing number of writer/artists, will handle the creative duties. Based on the covers, it looks like the new series will follow the traditional Scooby status quo and character designs, rather than those of the brand new Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated series.

Weird War Tales #1: This week’s one-issue resurrection of an old DC title looks like the most exciting of the lot. It will consist of three short stories by three different creative teams: Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein, Jan Strnad and Gabriel Hardman and Darwyn Cooke, who also provides the cover. It’s a $4 book.

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!

Following her Facebook-fueled Saturday Night Live hosting gig this spring, Betty White is facing an unprecedented career resurgence at the age of 88. In the past year-and-a-half, she’s co-starred in The Proposal, won an Emmy, appeared in commercials, landed a role on Hot in Cleveland, and will guest star this month on the season premiere of Community. Given this newfound cultural relevance, there’s only one logical next step:

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This is that most wonderful time of the year: the time when the new TV shows are hitting and so there’s a metric ton of new DVD and Blu-Ray releases of last year’s shows, hitting at an opportune time for folks to get caught up before the new episodes air. One such release is The Middle: The Complete First Season, which basically only qualifies as genre TV because of the involvement of The Janitor from Scrubs, who of course appeared in Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau’s The Perhapanauts.

Similar to my issue with The Vampire Diaries, the new Neil Flynn-Patricia Heaton sitcom The Middle suffers from a little too much narration, much of which is heavyhanded and full of exposition. It’s also not helped by the fact that the show is pretty formulaic and predictable, with the same sitcom-staple plots that have driven every family comedy for years. In fact, the quirkiness that is the show’s saving grace may not be so impressive when you compare it to that other family sitcom with “Middle” in the title. Frankly, I never cared for the episodes I saw of Malcolm, which makes this one a little fresher to me. Besides, Patricia Heaton—who always came off as shrill and angry on Everybody Loves Raymond, really shines in this show, where her skills are front-and-center. Neil Flynn, best known as The Janitor from Scrubs, disappoints while impressing. He gets most of the best lines, and he definitely carries them off…but after having crafted The Janitor—one of the most insane and likable characters in the last 20 years of TV—almost from whole cloth, here he’s given a lot more to work with and does a lot less with it. That could just be a question of direction, but the bottom line is if you tuned in to see The Janitor you’ll be fairly disappointed.

The kids are really the weakest link of the show; while the parents are pretty strong performers, the kids are pretty much standard, both in terms of performance and in terms of writing and characterization. While the parents are certainly the centerpiece of the show, it would help sell the bit if the kids weren’t, frankly, a little boring. Ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with this show, and its scheduling proximity to Modern Family will probably keep it alive for a few years—but it’s probably not worth buying unless you fall in love with it on first viewing. If you want, though, it came to home video on August 31, so you can own it on Blu-Ray or DVD today.

After June’s $1 preview comic book, Papercutz begins their reprinting of the classic Peyo comics in earnest with The Smurfs and The Magic Flute and The Purple Smurfs. In some ways, reviewing artist Pierre “Peyo” Culliford’s and, in a few cases, co-writer Yvan Delporte’s comics seems a bit silly, as their place in history, their longevity and their cultural influence and significance all serve as pretty good clues as to the quality of the comics.

They are, or course, great comics.

Based on these 120 pages or so worth of Peyo’s Smurfs comics, they’re also remarkably timeless. Like most Americans my age, I spent a significant portion of my life watching Smurf cartoons, the theme song is permanently embedded in my head, and, when I would think of the Smurfs, I would think of a once irritatingly ubiquitous marketing presence. Even as a little kid I had grown sick of the Smurfs.

And yet these comics are strong enough that they erased all of my negative memories and associations. These comics are still fresh, and when I was reading them it was like I was meeting the characters and concepts for the first time.

Anyway, given the fact that we’re even reading Smurfs comics over 50 years after they first started appearing,  a regular review assessing the quality of those comics seems less relevant than assessing certain elements of their new presentation.

So let’s do that instead.

The presentation. I rather liked the overall look and design of the packaging. They’re slim trade paperbacks (although hardcovers are also available for a few extra bucks),  and both are between 50 and 60 pages (although the high number of panels per page help them “read” longer).

The main colors are, of course, blue and white, and Papercutz uses the former in inventive ways, like using blue ink instead of black or the page numbers. The title of each trade is presented nice and big, with a smaller “Smurfs…by Peyo” logo across the top. The Papercutz “Z” logo is itself tiny and unobtrusively placed, and there are little Smurf silhouettes indicating the numbers in each story.

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(If you’re wondering why Linkarama is appearing on Tuesday this week instead of on Monday, the answer is very simple—I couldn’t write it yesterday, on Labor Day, for fear of angering the ghosts of late 19th Century Central Labor Union men)

I didn’t even realize how bad things were until they got worse: Did you know that there was only one black editorial cartoonist working for a major daily newspaper in the United States? I didn’t, until I read this article…about how he was being laid off.

“Any time of day, New York looks like a comic”: Writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, Michelle Griffin surveys New York City as the capital city of comic books, in terms of geography, setting and inspiration.

“For every Batman, there’s a Matter-Eater Lad”: Wired‘s Geek Dad blog suggests the “Top 10 Obscure Superheroes Who Deserve Their Own Movies.” I’d buy a ticket to see any movies based on any of the heroes on their list. Meanwhile, Bully has his own not-exactly-A-List superhero he’d like to see get a Hollywood film. Bully’s suggestion is awesome because a) the casting would guarantee a hit and b) it might even get a second woman on the line-up for the Avengers film.

“The 10 strangest creative liberties ever taken on superhero TV shows”: Not included? Almost everything about the 70s’ live acction Shazam! show.

“Kochalkas’ work-play on display in new graphic novel”: The Burlington Free Press has a nice profile of Eli Kochalka, the “young, fresh face about to burst onto the indie comics scene,” and his dad James Kochalka. It’s occassioned by the immenent release of Dragon Puncher. Eli Kochalka is also a recurring character in his dad’s short American Elf diary comics, which you can—and should!—read here.

“They were forbidden, so, of course, I had to read them”: That’s John Ostrander, explaining how he first got into comic books during a writer’s workshop he lead at a public library. You can read about the event here.

“Even Hit Like ‘Kick-Ass’ Can Seem Like Miss at Debut”: That’s the headline of this pretty interesting article from The New York Times,  which examines “the race-to-judge phenomenon” in which the success of big Hollywood movies are judged exclusively on how well they opened. The rough summer for comic book movies narrative is mentioned as well, although the numbers cited suggest that while Kick-Ass actually kicked some ass when all the dollars it made are added up, Jonah Hex and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World were genuine flops.

“Emily Blunt Could Be Cast as Villain in ‘Iron Man 3′”: Hmm…who would she play? Madame Masque?

I just got done showering and shaving. During that time, I did something that most people would be too humiliated even to consider; I sang and danced “Twist and Shout” into brush and filmed it on my cell phone. You know what I proved to myself? Just because Ferris Bueller can pull it off, doesn’t mean we all can. That’s kind of how I feel about voiceover. Usually I feel like stories with a pervasive, first-person voiceover end up spoon-feeding the viewer, and they rarely work for me. There are exceptions–but when I think of Ferris (or Fight Club or High Fidelity), I realize that when it works, it’s mostly becuase the character who’s doing the narration is one with a strong voice. There just isn’t anyone like this in the show I’m about to talk about, which really hurts the overall tone. (more…)

Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story
Written by Mat Johnson
Illustrated by Simon Gane
Gray tones and color by Lee Loughridge
Lettered by Pat Brosseau
Published by DC/Vertigo

Vertigo’s made a move recently toward publishing more graphic novels, and I approve in general of the move.  For whatever reason, I’ve never been a big fan of going to the comic shop every single week and prefer to pick up a meatier volume when something specifically strikes my fancy.  Much of their recent graphic novel output has come from the Vertigo Crime sub-line, which, for me anyway, has been a bit of a disappointment.  However, the graphic novels that aren’t part of the crime line have been quite impressive overall.

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In the Marvel Universes, since the dawn of humanity, there have been people on Earth born with the X-gene, a genetic bonus that gives them unique or superhuman traits. One such mutant was born over a century ago in Canada and later discovered that he had been born with heightened senses, incredible regenerative abilities and a set of three bone claws housed in each forearm. After the tragic deaths of his parents and the shocking realization of his mutant abilities, this young mutant (who took on the name Logan) left his home and became a miner for a while. With his short stature, unwillingness to quit and his digging prowess, he earned the nickname of “Wolverine” and became a respected member of the town. But when his mutant nature was discovered, he had to flee again.

Over the decades, Logan traveled the world. He lived with a pack of wolves, fought with Americans in World War I, lived in Japan and its neighbor Madripoor, fought in World War II and eventually joined the CIA. For much of this time, he was manipulated by the mysterious Romulus, acting as the man’s assassin and agent for reasons he never fully questioned. Often times, Romulus caused Wolverine to suffer amnesia after major events or missions. Eventually, Logan became the test subject of the Weapon X Program, which intended to create a perfect biological weapon. Logan had most of his memory wiped out and his skeleton became laced with the indestructible metal called Adamantium, making him even harder to kill than before. He was also given layers of mental programming.

After 18 months, Wolverine escaped from the Weapon X project and was eventually found by agents of the Canadian government. He worked as a secret agent and occasionally his mental programming had him still doing missions for Romulus. The Canadian government eventually asked him to become a costumed, national superhero and almost immediately afterward Logan was asked to join the mutant team known as the X-Men. Romulus ordered him to kill the telepath Xavier, mentor of the X-Men. But Xavier saw potential in Wolverine and freed him from his assassin programming, though this also meant causing Logan to lose much of his memory again. In the years afterward, Logan’s true nature emerged and he became a hero as an X-Man, working to protect a world that feared and hated him. Thanks to the team that embraced him as a family and the experiences he had with them, he finally saw himself as a man rather than as an animal.

Eventually, Logan regained his full memories and was shocked by what he’d done in the past and the people he had victimized. Now with a somewhat darker outlook on life, Wolverine continues his fight against threats to himself and the world, not merely on his own but also as a member of the Avengers, the X-Men and his own covert team X-Force. Yes, he’s on that many teams (and possibly more).

Over the years, Wolvie’s worn quite a few outfits. He may be “the best there is at what he does,” but that doesn’t necessarily include fashion. So let’s take a look at the Canucklehead’s apparel, shall we?

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”’Buffy’ still ignites controversy…”: I’m a little late to this link, as the LA Times TV blogger wrote this piece about Buffy fans’ reaction to the character’s most-loathed ex-boyfriend getting his own one-shot a few days ago.  I imagine the most hardcore Buffy fans among you have therefore already had a chance to read and digest this then, but for the rest of us I think it’s of some interest in that a mainstream media writer on a non-comics, non-books beat is still writing about the Buffy comic this late in its run. The thirty-sixth issue of the series just shipped this week, after all.

“Of all the big superhero franchises, none are quite so haunted by the specter of their creators as the Fantastic Four”: Writing for Techland, Douglas Wolk uses the upcoming FF storyline—the one being teased with that “3″ ad—as a springboard for discussing a perceived inflexibility in that title’s concept. It’s a rather interesting discussion. Marc-Oliver Frisch and Tom Spurgeon each throw their two cents in elsewhere (Actually, I think Frisch throws a whole quarter in).

It’s a tie: “You Decide—Which Hideous Lady Gaga Comic Book Cover Is Worse?”

Warning—Consuming raw Batman may increase the risk of food borne illness: “Gary Frank promises ‘raw’ Batman”

“There’s a whole new family of comic books revolving around their favorite, angry, claw-springing Canadian superhero”: That’s part of the lede of this USA Today interview with Wolverine writer Jason Aaron about his upcoming Wolvie’s Inferno style story, which seems to be picking up on Marvel putting together a Wolverine “family” of books as they have with the Hulk franchise in the last few years, but the rest of the article just focuses on Wolvie’s trip to hell.

Fumetti as show flyer?: This article from North Carolina’s Asheville Citizen-Times is very much a local story, and thus you might not get much out of it, but one thing I found interesting was that the band being featured has apparently been promoting shows by starring in online photos-and-dialogue bubble comics. They’re…not really very good comics or anything, but it’s a fun idea nonetheless. You can check ‘em out here.

Congratulations to Jim Woodring: Remember Jim Woodring’s quest to raise enough money to build a gigantic pen to make gigantic cartoons with? Well, he’s rasied the money. The next step? Building the pen. Here are the plans. (Via Flog)