More disappointing news for Roger Langridge fans: Following the news two weeks ago that Thor: The Mighty Avenger, the Marvel Comics title he writes with artist Chris Samnee, was ending with issue #8, Langridge shared today on his blog that his next arc on BOOM!’s acclaimed The Muppet Show Comic Book would be his last. (more…)

What’s that? Oh, in the cartoon? That appears to be Ant-Man Eric O’Grady and Wasp Hank Pym, the stars of writer/artist Tim Seeley’s Ant-Man & Wasp #2, which ships this week, shrunken down to insect sized. What are they saying? Well, at that size, their dialogue is just too darn tiny to read, but I’m sure it’s a very funny joke.

Aside from Marvel’s shrinky, bug-themed hero team-up book, what else is coming out this Thursday? (Remember, Thanksgiving delays shipments an extra day this week). Let’s take a look…together!

Achewood Vol. 3: A Home For Scared People: Dark Horse continues their collection of Chris Onstad’s brilliant web comic with this $17, 105-page, black and white hardcover. As with the previous collections, this one will include the alt text jokes, strip annotations by Onstad and various bonus features to help justify buying something you’ve probably already read for free. You can read a brief preview here or, of course, read as big a preview as you want at achewood.com; “Ray’s Start Up” is one of the story arcs collected in this volume.

Action Comics Annual #13: Action Comics writer Paul Cornell continues to pit Lex Luthor against DC villains int this $5, 50-some page annual, which flashes back to a young, hair-having Lex’s first encounter with Darkseid. Marco Rudy and Ed Benes provide the art.

Batman: Orphans #1: Are the twenty or so Batman and Batman family books DC is publishing this month just not giving you your fill of Batman? Don’t worry! There’s always this two-issue miniseries by Eddie Berganza, Carlo Barberi and Juan Vlasco. Set in the recent past, when Bruce Wayne was the only Batman and Tim Drake was still Robin, each issue of this story is over-sized and $4.

Black Harvest: I thought this six-issue, 2005 series blending UFOlogy and religious symbolism left a bit to be desired, but I love Josh Howard’s artwork so much I’ll read just about anything he writes, so long as he illustrates it as well. This version of the story features an expanded ending though, so it might actually read better than the original series. You can take a look here. It’s a $16, 145-page collection, and you can take a look here.
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Written and created by Brian Andersen, art, colors and letters by the talented Celina Hernandez. For more So Super Duper go to:www.sosuperduper.com!

It’s happening: Mark Millar is launching a comic book convention in the UK called Kapow! Comic Con, happening April 9 and 10, 2011 at the London Business Design Centre (a month after C2E2 in Chicago, a week after WonderCon in San Francisco, and more than three months before Comic-Con International in San Diego). Guests include Andy Diggle, Jock, Steve Dillon, Duncan Fegredo, David Hine, Simon Furman, John McCrea and Kieron Gillen, plus Frank Quitely, Lenil Francis Yu and Dave Gibbons, with the latter three showing up alongside Millar in this video:

Kapow! Comic Con Trailer from kapowcomiccon on Vimeo.

It’s endearing how genuinely excited Millar comes across in the video, especially when when delivering lines like “the only thing missing is you,” but such earnestness is still a mite bit disarming coming from the writer of The Unfunnies.

Update: Here’s some more info, courtesy of Kapow! Comic Con’s Facebook page: the event will host the first-ever Stan Lee Awards (honoring comics and movies, there’s no indication yet if Lee himself will be there in person), plus, fittingly, the premiere screening of Millar’s directorial debut, Miracle Park.

While many in the mainstream entertainment press have been mourning the loss of Leslie Nielsen — who starred in Superhero Movie in one of his last mainstream roles — a geek icon has also passed this morning.

Irvin Kershner, director of The Empire Strikes Back, died this morning after a long illness at the age of 87, according to Empire. He had been struggling with “a long illness,” which was not further elaborated upon.

In addition to Empire Strikes Back, Kershner also directed the James Bond film Never Say Never Again and Robocop 2.

Kershner’s contributions to the pop culture landscape are not always recognized, so give the man a moment of silence while you watch this bit of Star Wars history in the making:

“Pair hope Macon comic book convention could become economic superhero”: There’s a pretty interesting lede in this Macon, Georgia Telegraph story about writer Rhett Thomas and curator Eric O’Dell’s work on a MaCon comic book convention—the idea of comic conventions as mini, economic stimuli for the cities they’re located in. Like any industry conventions and meetings, they bring in a decent amount of money being spent at local hotels and restaurants, and I’m sure they’re therefore welcome in just about any city.

“‘Young Justice’ cartoon a better adaptation than ‘Teen Titans’”: I hope this Thom Casey fellow’s assessment of the new cartoon show is dead-on, because that Teen Titans cartoon was really great.

“Anyway, it’s a nice poster, right?”: Will Pfeifer spends types a couple of sentences about one of the two green superhero movies scheduled for 2011.

“Lynda! Barry! Everything! Finally!”: Are you curious about this Lynda Barry person everyone is so enthusiastic about, but aren’t sure where to start reading? Well then does Drawn and Quarterly ever have an announcement for you! And speaking of D+Q product announcements, do you like comics? Do you like Canadian comics? Do you like teen melodrama? Do you like Bigfoot? (Heck, who doesn’t!) Then the publisher has another great-looking book that may interst you.

Reminder: Wilbur is a dick.

“It can be done”: In the process of handing a negative review to the comics adaptation of The Alchemist, writer Douglas Wolk gets into some of the core difficulties of adapting prose works into comics.

“Is it a bird? Is it a play? It’s a superhero”: This headline atop another piece about the Spider-Man musical is a pretty good riff on one of the go-to gags newspaper editors always turn to when thinking up a headline for an article mentioning a superhero.

See, Tucker can write just as well about comics he likes: Tucker Stone, one of the Internet’s most clever and amusing basher of terrible comics, writes at some length about Flash #6, praising its art and colors and noting the bittersweet nature of the disposability of comics means that as beautiful as the book is, “it will make no lists and find few libraries.” I…I almost teared up a bit at the end there. Tucker Stone touched me. And not in a bad way.

“Seasonal gift from a famous resident”: Here’s a nice little story from Northampton about “world-famous Northampton writer” Alan Moore donating a few thousand pounds worth Christmas “hampers” (bags, in American?) to his local Salvation Army. It’s a story about Alan Moore being generous around the time of the holidays, and Alan Moore has a long white beard so, um, I’m sure there’s a Santa Claus joke in there somewhere, but I don’t feel like writing it.

Nipper, 1963-64
Written & Illustrated by Doug Wright
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

Doug Wright’s Nipper acted as the Canadian equivalent to Bil Keane’s The Family Circus.  There are many outward differences – Nipper is multi-paneled and almost entirely silent, whereas Keane’s strip is one image with an accompanying caption, but the overall tone of each strip is remarkably similar.  Those gosh-darn kids and their crazy antics!

Wright’s an excellent draftsman, so Nipper looks great.  If readers take anything away from the book, it will undoubtedly be an appreciation for Wright’s illustrative prowess.  In four to six panels, his elegant line and strong compositions capture the innocent and maddening travails of parenthood.  The slick drawings capture the idyllic dream of 1960s family life, a dream continually undermined by the chaotic endings of each sequence.

Doug Wright was a keen observer of the family dynamic, and a powerful, clean illustrator.  Combining his talents, he created an engaging, fun family comic strip, now collected by Drawn & Quarterly as Nipper, 1963-64. Taken in book form, the strips read incredibly quickly, giving readers not much more than an hour of enjoyment, but readers who appreciate this innocently charming material will certainly find it an hour well spent.

On November 23, 1963 at 5:15 pm on a Saturday, the BBC premiered a program that was intended to educate children on some basics of science and history and was expected to last perhaps a year. It became popular with people of all ages, delved into science fiction, history and fantasy, and created a franchise that has lasted for 47 years now.

The hero of this program is the mysterious Doctor, a Time Lord who travels in a “Type 40 TT Capsule”, also called a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), a ship that goes anywhere in space and time and seems determined to take the hero to places in the universe where serious trouble is about to occur. Though he’s more interested in adventure than any quest for justice, the Doctor fights evil whenever he stumbles across it. Blessed with the ability to regenerate his entire body twelve times, he has thirteen lives and so far has been portrayed by eleven different actors in his many television adventures.

The original program lasted 26 years, after which there were the “wilderness years” where the Doctor’s adventures were only continued in novels, comics, a few audio plays and even in stage productions. Fox then got the rights did a made-for-TV movie in 1996 introducing the 8th Doctor, but while this did very well in England the numbers in the US weren’t good enough to bring the show back. The wilderness years continued, but now with surging interest, a deluge of new audio plays starring the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Doctors. People realize that the public truly wanted this show to return and in 2005 the new series began, continuing an undetermined amount of time after the events of the TV-movie, introducing a new 9th Doctor who had recently suffered a terrible loss thanks to the Last Great Time War.

The new show is easy enough to get into since the first season and the latest fifth season are both written to be new-viewer-friendly, not requiring major knowledge concerning the Doctor’s past for you to enjoy them. But still, what about you folks who want to get to know the classic Doctors and aren’t sure where to start? Well, just for you, here is a primer on each of the Classic Doctors with some story recommendations for each one.

WHO IS THE DOCTOR?

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“‘Spider-Man’ starts to emerge from secrecy”: Now The New York Times takes a turn peeking behind the curtain of the Spider-Man musical.

“‘Superman: Earth One’ is a disappointment”: This Scripps Howard News Service wire review of the much ballyhooed original graphic novel isn’t necessarily great comics criticism or anything—I didn’t know anyone actually used the term “epic fail” in a non-ironic, un-sarcastic way—but it’s well worth a read for the author’s dismantling of Superman’s practice of journalism.  One of things that always charmed me about the Silver Age Superman stories, especially after working in a newspaper, was how incredibly unprofessional the staff of The Daily Planet was. Those reporters—all three of them, and their one editor—were constantly making the news about themselves, and putting big, huge, 80-point font headlines with their names above those stories about themselves right there on the front page.

Great headline, guys: “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane…It’s Comic Book Artist Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez”

“Weisman…promises over 150 characters in the first 18 episodes alone”: This TV Guide article about the upcoming Young Justice show sure makes it sound like a big show. Producer Greg Weisman goes on to say that about 98-percent of those 150 are based on existing DC characters. I’m not sure how the math works out against Justice League Unlimited or Batman: The Brave and The Bold, but that sure sounds like a lot of DC characters.

“Hathaway rumoured for Superman”: But she’s make a terrible Superman, why, she’s not even a man! I can’t–Oh, for Lois Lane, huh? Okay, I can see that then.

“Christian Bale says the next Batman film may be his last”: Oh no! Laughing at Bale’s goofy, growly Batman voice is my favorite part of watching Nolan’s Batman movies!

Thor: Tales of Asgard
Written by Stan Lee
Penciled by Jack Kirby
Inked by George Roussos, Don Heck, Paul Reinman, Chic Stone, Vince Colletta & Bill Everett
Colored by Matt Milla
Lettered by Artie Simek & Sam Rosen
Published by Marvel Comics

If there’s one good thing about the upcoming Thor film (there may be more than one, but this particular one is the highlight so far as I’m concerned), it is the existence of this book.  You see, back in the 60s, when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby came up with Thor, they devoted five or so pages in the back of their comic to short stories that were inspired directly from classical mythology, rather than fitting everything into an urban, superhero context.  Tales of Asgard started as short “origin”-type stories, but quickly evolved into a multi-part, epic/quest serial.

Tales of Asgard also stands out as perhaps the highest point of the classic Marvel Comics era.

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In honor of the holiday, here’s the once-in-a-lifetime team of Spider-Man, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, Wolverine, Captain America, the Silver Surfer, Luke Cage, the Hulk and R&B star Melba Moore fighting the team of Magneto, Green Goblin, Dr. Doom and the White Queen with the undeniable power of an ’80s power ballad. (Keep in mind this was 1989, thus a pre-Bendis Luke Cage and a pre-Morrison Emma Frost, making their inclusion all the more inexplicable.)

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! (Also, Wonder Woman? Come on, Deborah Norville.)

Happy Thanksgiving, Newsarama readers!  In case you’re not a football fan (or in case you’re not an American reader and just want to keep your ‘Rama routine going today), I thought I’d give you something to read while lazing through your tryptophan-induced slumber.

So here’s a set of Batman comics from DC Comics that I’ve read in the past couple days.

Batman Incorporated #1
Written by Grant Morrison
Penciled by Yanick Paquette
Inked by Michael Lacombe
Colored by Nathan Fairbairn
Lettered by John J. Hill
Cover art by J.H. Williams III or Paquette, Lacombe & Fairbairn

The new mission begins in earnest in Batman Incorporated #1, as Batman and Catwoman travel to Tokyo to train a Japanese Batman.  Of course, Lord Death Man’s already killed Batman’s first choice, so they’ll have to improvise.  Not much to complain about in an issue featuring catchy dialogue, a fun, fast pace, and sleek, dynamic superhero artwork from Paquette.  I’m not sure Morrison’s new take on Batman will last any longer than his take on the X-Men, but it looks like it will be a fun ride while it lasts.  Nice cliffhanger, with teases embedded right into it.  I hope Morrison keeps that in his bag of tricks. (more…)

American Vampire #6-8
Written by Scott Snyder
Illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque
Colored by Dave McCaig
Lettered by Steve Wands
Published by DC/Vertigo

After my less-than-enthusiastic reaction to American Vampire v. 1, one dedicated fan of the series asked me to give it a second chance, and believed in the series enough to send me the next three issues. That fan’s faith is apparently rewarded, because Scott Snyder’s series finds its legs during this storyline.

Snyder’s still working the vampire and horror motifs effectively, but he’s found a thematic core that gives the series some meat beyond the scary imagery.  He’s also developing a more complex mythology, but the series draw here is witnessing the dark underbelly of America’s development.  The building of the Hoover Dam, and its effect on Las Vegas (gambling and prostitution to entertain the dam workers, and all the problems of a population boom) and the surrounding areas comes into the spotlight here.  Snyder threads his vampires into the Dam’s origin, giving the storyline plenty of spectacle and horror, but he maintains a solid thematic thread about the backroom dealing and duplicitous origins of America’s 20^th century development.

Rafael Albuquerque’s character designs and backdrops remain strong.  He excels in the quiet scenes, particularly the scenes of our heroic Chief Cashel talking with his wife or father.  Heavy shadowing captures the gothic terror of the vampires wonderfully as well.

I thought the series had some potential, but it’s nice to actually see some of it coming out here.  If you’re on the fence after the first book, American Vampire might yet be a series worth your while.

“It’s just Ultimate Spider-Man. Who cares?”: Ken Raining uses the announcement of the “Death of Spider-Man” story as a springboard to discuss Marvel’s Ultimate imprint, which is nearing its tenth year of existence.

Speaking of dead Spider-Men…: Check out Gipi’s Spidey Pieta.

“…in a team comic book it’s hard to care about anybody when there are eleventy-billion characters”: Bob Temuka looks at the history of Marvel’s x-ploitation of the X-Men franchise.

The Curious Case of the Creator Credit Conundrum: Don MacPherson notices that Paul Levitz earns a creator credit for The Huntress on Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon, but the character’s co-creators don’t. What’s up with that? MacPherson hunts for answers.

The second of three titles from BOOM!’s Stan Lee line hits tomorrow, The Traveler by Mark Waid and Chad Hardin. And though you may have thought those Xtranormal videos with the two cartoon animals talking in Stephen Hawking voices peaked in early 2009, BOOM! Studios has shown there’s still some unusual marketing potential there in this video, lightly satirizing the current superhero comic book climate while pushing The Traveler. Hey, here it is!

And that’s exactly why Grimlock was not invited to guest-edit IDW’s $20, 145-page Transformers: The Best of Grimlock collection.

Well that, and the fact that he’s not real, of course.

Amazing Spider-Man #649: You know what Spider-Man comics need right now, more than anything? More goblins. So be sure to check out this issue, which introduces the new look for the Hobgoblin, who may or may not be a new person under the hood. It’s by Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos and company, and will cost you $4.

Batman and Robin #17: Here’s something I’ve never been able to understand—why doesn’t dccomics.com ever update it’s preview information regarding comic books when it drastically changes? I know it’s a pain to do so, but it can’t be that hard to update that stuff, can it? Today’s example is Batman and Robin #17, which, according to one page on dccomics.com, is the debut issue of the brand-new creative team of Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason. But another part of the same site, The Source blog, has a post about how this issue is the previously announced first issue of Paul Cornell and Scott McDaniel’s three-issue fill-in arc, which stalls for time while Tomasi and Gleason gear up for the start of their run. Entirely different content from entirely different people seems like the sort of thing that might merit a correction in the comics catalog portion of the site, doesn’t it? I know I’d be awfully irritated if I picked up a book expecting to see Gleason’s pencils and ended up with McDaniels’ (although, to be fair, the fill-in arc looks pretty good too). UPDATE: DC did update the information in their solicitations section sometime Tuesday, so feel free to ignore my griping above.

Batwoman #0: After a good four years of dilly-dallying—plans for an ongoing were announced shortly after Batwoman first appeared in 52, remember—DC finally pulls the trigger on the long-in-development title. The final version is being both illustrated and written by J.H. Williams III, with W. Haden Blackman co-writing and, for this $4 first issue, Amy Reeder helping out with the art. With Williams and Reeder involved, you can bet that no matter what, it’s at least going to be a gorgeous looking book.

Boy Commandos By Joe Simon and Jack Kirby: One day soon, everything Jack Kirby has ever drawn for DC will be available in one of these big, $50 collections. And you know what that means? It’s only a matter of time before DC collects Kirby’s various Super Powers comics from the ‘80s. In the meantime, here’s 260-pages of Simon and Kirby’s Nazi-fighting, international kid gang, from the pages of TEC, World’s Finest and their own Boy Commandos book.
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Written and created by Brian Andersen, art, colors and letters by the talented Celina Hernandez. For more So Super Duper go to:www.sosuperduper.com!

Victorian Undead: Sherlock Homes vs. Dracula #1
Written by Ian Edginton
Illustrated by Davide Fabbri with Tom Mandrake
Colored by Carrie Strachan
Lettered by Saida Temofonte
Cover art by Ryan Sook
Published by DC/Wildstorm

It’s probably just my own obliviousness, since this is a sequel and all, but did you know that there was a previous Victorian Undead series?  Sherlock Holmes vs. zombies?  I didn’t.  In truth, when this comic showed up in my mailbox, I kind of laughed at it, yet another genre mashup.  Cowboys vs. Aliens.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  I haven’t actually read any of them.  They might be good, but it just doesn’t appeal to me.  But here is was, Sherlock Holmes battling Dracula, and it was in my hands.

Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula is, perhaps not surprisingly given Ian Edginton’s name in the credits, a very good genre potboiler.  Edginton doesn’t force the action – the set-up is simple, and Holmes involvement makes obvious sense.  The titular villain doesn’t appear until the final page, so readers are essentially treated to twenty pages of Holmes’ investigation.  Edginton clearly knows his Arthur Conan Doyle.

The art’s fairly strong, with strong character designs and very good page layouts.  Fabbri’s able to move the reader’s eye through the page very effectively.  The end result is a fun, engaging genre thriller, sharply dialogued, well drawn, and worth the time of any interested reader.

Fans were rather unanimously bummed when news broke today that the long-rumored Buffy the Vampire Slayer was going forward reboot film, and that beloved Buffyverse mastermind Joss Whedon was not involved. Topless Robot called it “a bold move to want to relaunch a franchise and keep absolutely none of its original fanbase;” Entertainment Weekly’s reader comments ranged from “No Whedon, no go” to the even more succinct “BARFFFF.”

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Registration for 2011′s Comic-Con International: San Diego may be a giant error message-shaped question mark at this point, but here’s some positive convention news: Chicago’s C2E2 has announced their initial crop of guests, and named the always-active Brian Michael Bendis (currently writing Avengers, New Avengers, Scarlet, Powers, Ultimate Spider-Man and soon Moon Knight and Takio) as their first guest of honor.

Also attending C2E2: Art Baltazar, Franco Aureliani, Geof Darrow, Katie Cook, and Tim Seeley. C2E2 debuted this past April, and is put on by Reed Exhibitions, the same company that produces New York Comic Con. 2011′s event is scheduled for March 18-20, 2011.