All he wants to do is sparkle — but all he seems to do is suck.

But when you’re Teenage Satan, that seems par for the course — life is Hell, and high school is just only the beginning. A home-school flunk-out, Teenage Satan has to deal with his disapproving dad, survive the bullies and pine for his next-door neighbor.

But while dear old Lucifer might think his sparkle-crazy son might be a waste of space, there are three women who think he’s the bee’s knees — writers Marsha and Candis Cooke and artist Stephanie Buscema. Releasing Teenage Satan this September as an online comic extravaganza, they finally broke the news about their upcoming project recently at the Boston Comic Con.

“High school is like a horrible haircut,” said Candis. “You don’t want to go out into the world everyday, but you have to.”

And for Teenage Satan, getting away with that horrible haircut isn’t exactly going to be a piece of cake, not when your dad is the Lord of the Underworld. While he’ll be picked on by football player Joey and will crush hard on his next-door-neighbor Mary, he will have a few friends to back him up: Nick and Nikki, a Jack and Meg White-esque pair of conspiracy theorists whose exact relationship is strangely indeterminate, and Gabe, a ghostly pal who wants to help our hapless hero.

“It’s Hell for everyone — teenage life is Hell and we’ve all been there. There’s people going through it now,” Candis laughed. Everything gets better but teenage life, the years between 14 and 16, are the worst years of everyone’s life.”

For the Cookes, you might recognize the name — Marsha is the wife of DC: The New Frontier writer Darwyn Cooke, while Candis is his niece. Coming from that industry background, the Cookes felt that digital was the real platform for growth.

“Darwyn and I talk about digital all the time and we talk about the lack of material in the marketplace for young people,” Marsha said. “We go through the comic boxes and look for comics we can give during Halloween, and both are from Art and Franco. We didn’t think there was anything age-appropriate.”

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More unfortunate TV news today. Deadline is reporting the adaptation of Joe Hill’s comic Locke & Key from IDW is not being picked up by Fox for the fall season.

It seemed hopeful for the series to get picked up, it was adapted for television by writer Josh Friedman, who previously worked on Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles for the network and had Miranda Otto, Nick Stahl, Mark Pellegrino and Jessie McCartney in starring roles.

The comic, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez, tells the story of the Locke family who endure personal tragedy and move away from the horrors only to find more. The three Locke children discover their family house contains keys that do lots more than open locked doors and there are supernatural forces at work that will do anything to obtain them.

Deadline said there were rumors Fox could make a limited series/miniseries out of Locke & Key but weren’t sure if it was something financially feasible for the network. Turns out, that’s not going to happen either. The only hope to come out of this news is both The Hollywood Reporter and Enterainment Weekly say Locke & Key could be retooled for a later premiere or shopped elsewhere now that Fox has passed.

I’m incredibly bummed about this one, Locke & Key is one of my favorite comics. If you haven’t already, I suggest giving it a look, both the writing and art are phenomenal.

After two seasons, Fox is pulling the plug on Human Target, as reported by Deadline.

The news isn’t entirely surprising, given Human Target’s recognized status as a “bubble show” after lower average ratings from last season. The series did hit some late spikes, including seasons two’s penultimate episode netting 9.2 million viewers in a post-American Idol time slot.

The series was loosely based on the DC character Christopher Chance, and starred Mark Valley in the title role. Fox has also canceled Breaking In, which co-starred Smallville‘s Michael Rosenbaum.

More television news is expected in the days ahead, with all five broadcast networks announcing their fall schedules in upfront presentations next week. NBC’s upfronts are scheduled for May 16, where the fate of the David E. Kelley-helmed Wonder Woman pilot will be revealed.

Softball’s always fun, but it’s most fun when your team plays a evenly matched foe. Two teams see-sawing the lead, each at-bat becoming magnified in the game’s final outcome, every out a tragically missed opportunity – it doesn’t get any better. In The Daily Show squad, the DC Bullets seem to have found an equally matched rival. Their first confrontation last summer is already part of Bullet lore.

Although their second game (thankfully) didn’t occur on the hottest weekend of the year, it matched the excitement of that initial game on every other level. In the end, as they did one year prior, The Daily Show emerged triumphant, walking off with a game-winning single in the bottom of the eighth inning to secure the 12-11 victory.

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These are the times that try a fan’s soul, or at least a fan’s wallet—starting tomorrow, DC and Marvel will both have big, linewide crossover/event/unified branding storylines going simultaneously. Marvel’s Fear Itself started a few weeks ago, and now DC’s Flashpoint, a Blackest Night-like event launches with Flashpoint #1.

Geoff Johns is writing, And Kubert is drawing, and the premise is that Flash foe the Reverse-Flash has messed with the time stream enough to create a radically altered DCU. IT’s a 40-page, $4 issue.

This week also sees the release of Flash #12, the conclusion of a story arc entitled “The Road To Flashpoint,” which presumably has something to do with Flashpoint. Johns writes that as well, with Francis Manapul on art.

What else is out this week? Let’s take a look together, shall we?

Batman Incorporated #6: This is the issue with Chief Man-of-Bats riding a buffalo on the cover. If for some reason you need to know more than that, the main page has a preview.

Batman: Arkham City #1: This is the first issue of a five-issue miniseries based on the Batman videogames, meant to bridge the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum and the upcoming Batman: Arkham City. Paul Dini is writing, and Carlos D’Anda is handling the art.

Deadman Vol. 1: This $20, 180-page trade collects Strange Adentures #205-213, the original Deadman comics stories from the late ‘60s. Aside form introducing the character, these issues are probably best known for Neal Adams’ art. He illustrates much of this collection, but the other creators involved are no slouches either: Arnold Drake, Carmine Infantino, George Roussos and others.

Devil’s Concubine: Writer/artist Palle Schmidt’s original graphic novel is a crime/noir sort of deal involving two hitmen in a job gone bad in Europe. It’s an $18, 100-page trade paperback, and you should be able to spot it pretty easily—just look for the Peter Snejbjerg cover.

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If Bleeding Cool is to be believed – and, seriously, I feel like I should just have a tag that says that, I use it so much – then Disney/Marvel has issued a decree that all Marvel superhero content has to be created by Marvel US, ending a long run of UK-and-presumably-elsewhere-created material that has included Alan Moore’s Captain Britain and well-loved runs for characters like The Black Knight and Spider-Man (with some recent all-ages material being written by Roger Stern, interestingly enough), not to mention entire series like Knights of Pendragon and Death’s Head.

It goes without saying that I think this is a pretty bad idea – The UK-originated material sells well and doesn’t conflict with the “main” US material at all, and also offers both future US-reprint material and the chance to discover new talent for Marvel US to use in their books – but it’s also a confusing decision: Disney has a lot of licensed material that’s originated outside of the US, and has done for years, without any conflict. So what’s the problem with the Marvel material that requires it all being brought in-house? Is this Marvel paranoia and/or greed, or part of a wider Disney plan (Maybe the Pixar comics license being transferred from Boom! to Marvel is only be the start of centralizing Disney’s comic presence)?

Whatever the answer, I hope that those British and elsewhere creators who lose work because of this decision find new gigs elsewhere, and soon; there’s a lot of really talented people who’ll lose out because of this, sadly.

Over in Tim Callahan’s When Words Collide column at CBR, Walt Simonson explains why he wrote Donald Blake out of his Thor run so quickly:

My own feeling about that is that once we knew who Donald Blake was, and once Thor knew who he was, and once, presumably, Odin had revealed this secret, Thor’s time as a mortal should have been over. He’d learned his lesson. He knew what Odin had wanted him to know. I felt that, from that point on, Donald Blake was more or less a ball and chain around Thor’s leg. I mean, it could be done well, it was done well, but it didn’t make a lot of sense to me that Donald Blake was kept in the picture, once we knew what he was actually about.

There’s more to it – Go and read the whole piece, which is only the start of a chat with Simonson that continues next week – but it makes me wonder what purpose Donald Blake serves these days. Unless I’m entirely misremembering my Thor continuity – always possible – he was absent from the book from Simonson’s run all the way through JMS’ revival, right*? Beyond being a McGuffin to bring the character back, does Blake actually serve any purpose now – and if he does, what is that purpose? Isn’t Thor the one superhero – well, one of two, besides Captain America – who not only doesn’t need a secret identity, but doesn’t really gain anything by having one?

(* Yes, I know that Eric Masterson was, for all intents and purposes, Donald Blake 2.0 for awhile there, but still.)

Grant Morrison looks to be making his screenwriting debut with Dominion: Dinosaurs Versus Aliens, according to Deadline. Men in Black‘s Barry Sonnenfeld will direct.

The plot, as the title strongly implies, depicts an alien invasion in the time of dinosaurs. It’s part of a “publishing/movie deal” with Liquid Comics — the former Virgin Comics — that will also see Morrison writing a Dinosaurs Versus Aliens graphic novel. That’s slated for later this year, with art by Mukesh Singh, who worked with Morrison on Dynamite and Liquid’s 18 Days. A Newsarama interview with Morrison on that story is here.

UPDATE: Full press release, from Liquid Comics, after the jump.

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Last week’s Etsy Made Me Do It focused on the Mighty Blonde One, Thor. Once a week I sift through the millions of Etsy listings to find the best in geek chic for Blog@ readers. This week I decided to showcase one Etsy user whose crafts I found particularly delightful. His username is spandexsplinters and I give you his wooden superheroes and villains.

“The Joker. Batman’s long time arch enemy. Not sure if he runs in fear or from The Joker’s Halitosis,” writes spandexsplinters. This Sinister Hand Carved Wooden Joker is 5.5 x 1 inch, carved out of basswood and finished with acrylic paints. $25. (more…)

Well played, Christos Gage.

The Again With The Comics blog noticed that, not only did one of Speedball’s villains in Fear Itself: The Home Front #2 happen to be the Icemaster, the only character to successfully crossover from a first appearance in a Hostess Snack Cake ad to an in-continuity Marvel Universe existence, but that Gage even gave his origins a shout-out in the story itself:

Spectacular. I can only hope that the Serpent and every single one of the Worthy end up surrendering as long as they can eat as many artificially-flavored snackstuffs as they want.

(Related, because I really like the Again With The Comics blog: Other snack food villains that should appear in the “real” comics.)

Robert Kirkman’s updating people on the status of The Walking Dead‘s television incarnation over at the Hollywood Reporter:

We’re well into [second season pre-production on] the show; scripts are all completed and the final touches are being made and I think the cameras will be rolling in a few weeks. We’re all very excited to get back to Atlanta and sweat.

If you’re wondering who’s written all those episodes after the much-reported “firing” of the writing staff, well, Kirkman would like to set the record straight on that a little. Oh, and tease some, too: (more…)

Avatar star Sam Worthington’s Full Clip Productions has had a working relationship with LA-based publisher Radical Studios since last year, and it appears to be paying off in a big way: As announced at Cannes and reported today by The Hollywood Reporter, Radical’s three-part story The Last Days of American Crime is officially in motion as a feature film, with F. Gary Gray on board as director. As previously reported, Worthington is set to star.

The Last Days of American Crime debuted in late 2009, from writer Rick Remender and artist Greg Tocchini. The series depicts a future where mind control makes criminal activities impossible, so main character Graham Brick plans not only his last heist, but also the country’s. As the director of Set It Off and The Italian Job, Gray is no stranger to crime fiction. The Reporter article says the screenplay will be written by Karl Gadejsak, who doesn’t show up in an IMDb search.

Newsarama talked to Remender about the series back in October of 2009, and sat down with Full Clip Production to discuss their deal with Radical Studios last summer. The two previously announced comic book projects stemming from the Full Clip/Radical collaboration are Damaged and Patriots, both of which are yet to debut.

Um, wow. This page of Frank Miller/Klaus Janson art from Batman: The Dark Knight #3 just sold at auction for a record-breaking $448,125.

The page was sold through Heritage Auctions to a private bidder. From the auctions description:

This splash page is to our minds the single most memorable image from the entire book and the greatest image from the decade ever to come to market — as well as one of the handful of most desirable pieces of original comic art from any era to come to market. A perfect stand-alone image of Batman and Robin (Carrie Kelley, the first female, full-time Robin) soaring high above Gotham City, an icon symbolizing the entire storyline — this one has everything going for it.

As demonstrated by the fact that we’ve only offered two Dark Knight panel pages previously — and the fact that no splash page, much less a such an undeniably classic image, has never been offered at auction — artwork from the famed series is much scarcer than anything else from the period. This gem has been locked away in a single collection since being purchased upon the series’ original publication and is the definition of “fresh to market.” And unlike many pages from the series, where differences between the original art and the published version are evident (as a result of Miller making changes on pasteovers), no changes were made to this artwork for publication, and the original contains no paste-ups or stats — it’s pure art, just the way it appeared in print.

The art comes from page ten of the story, “Hunt the Dark Knight” in the now-famous arc and according to the website had fifteen bidders vying for the chance to own it. The Hollywood Reporter says, two other pages, page 2 from issue #4 and page 2 from issue #3 sold for $41.8K and $13.1K respectively. Previously, page #8 from Amazing Spider-Man #50 with art by John Romita Sr.  sold for $88,500. This sale shatters that record.

While a staggering number (I wonder how Miller feels about it), I’m not surprised a piece of original art went for this much, I’m just surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. After all, classic issues themselves now sell for $1 million plus easy.

Do you think $448,125 for a page of art from this issue/artist is justified or outrageous? What piece of comic art have you always had your eye on? If you had unlimited funds, what could you see yourself paying for it?

Everyone who thinks that Marvel is actually trying to piss you off? It turns out that, uh, is is…

When the fans out outraged, that means we’re doing something that’s getting attention and is a bit controversial–and that always leads to better sales for us, always. Whereas when we’re doing something that’s embraced by the fans, the numbers are always soft.

That’s Tom Brevoort explaining why fans being mad is good business on his Formspring account. As with Joe Quesada’s “sales decide how many Thor books we put out each month” thing last week, this isn’t surprising but is fairly depressing nonetheless. It does make me wonder, though: We know that controversy sells, but is it really true that good news will “always” result in relatively low sales?

An extremely vague tease comes our way from Bleeding Cool, which says that DC Comics are working on something called “The Dark”:

I don’t know what “The Dark” is. But whatever it is, it’s coming from DC Comics… Oh, but it’s not Simon Dark.

Thing is, given recent DCU events, I can think of two possible explanations for that title. In James Robinson’s Justice League of America right now, Eclipso has returned with a plan of apparently taking over the nexus of magic on the moon that was established in the JLA/JSA crossover last year… a crossover that happened to be called “The Dark Things,” now that I come to think of it. The title of the current arc is “Eclipso Rising” (or, if you go by the banner on the covers, “The Rise of Eclipso”), which suggests that it’s not going to end with everything all status quo and dealt with. So perhaps “The Dark” is some magic-based Justice League spin-off storyline?

Also – as far as I can tell, entirely unrelated – think back to the end of Brightest Day: The evil Swamp Thing was possessed by something the White Lantern called “The Black” – a corruption of “The Green,” the lifeforce that Swamp Thing more traditionally represents. But what if “The Dark” is related to that, and a continuation of Swampy’s re-integration into the DCU?

Of course, there’s always the third option, the always-traditional “None of The Above…”

Blank Slate’s upcoming slate: Down The Tubes shares the British publisher’s plans for the near future, which include a lot of neato stuff, like that Nelson collaborative graphic novel thing with the beautiful cover. Elsewhere on the site, cameos by several Scottish comics creators who aren’t Grant Morrison are revealed in a panel from All-Star Superman.

Some state politician vs. Neil Gaiman: At The Beat, Heidi MacDonald follows the goofy objections that Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean has to Gaiman receiving $45,000 speaking fee to speak at a library that hired him to speak there (It began with Dean saying he hates Gaiman and calling him “a pencil-necked little weasel” and claiming that he practically stole the money. The various volleys and reactions have been about as sad and occasionally amusing as one might expect in such a situation.

“Who Is The Mighty Thor, And Why Should Anyone Care?”: At his blog Too Busy Thinking About My Comics, Colin Smith looks at the first issue of The Mighty Thor, the Marvel comic that seems specifically positioned to appeal to new readers interested in the movie. He finds it wanting. (Those Langridge/Samnee Thor: The Mighty Avenger trades seem like they oughta do the trick though, matching the tone of the film’s Thor/Natalie Portman relationship).

Superman vs. Spider-Man….Sorta: Ty Templeton presents a Mother’s Day cartoon, one which is a good illustration of my personal belief that Krypto the Super-Dog is the scariest character in comics. Speaking of the oft-linked to Templeton, it’s his birthday today—Happy birthday, Ty Templeton!)

They were the best of bin Laden cartoons, they were the worst of bin Laden cartoons: Michael Cavna and Slate collect the best cartoons reacting to the death of Osama bin Laden (I think Slate‘s “best” usually just means “a bunch”), while Matt Bors looks at the worst.

“Is this the way to make Wonder Woman work on the big screen?”: This Interestant post compares a potential Wonder Woman to the actual Thor movie, in that both feature mythological superheroes. I found it interesting because it was my thinking that the upcoming Captain America movie was the most natural parallel to a potential Wonder Woman movie, given that it features a star-spangled superhero fighting Nazis in World War II.

Now that’s an original superpower: Manta-Man is a man who can turn into a flying manta ray.

“Kat Dennings Gets Her Comic Book Movie Wish, Sans Workouts”: Thor might have been Dennings’ first comic book superhero movie, but it’s not her first superhero movie.

Congratulations: To the Doug Wright Awards winners, Aaron and Kempo and the folks who made the Thor movie (Can you believe that the possibility of a Warriors Three spin-off movie even exists? Truly, we live in an age of wonders).

Thor vs. Green Lantern, the Hi, I’m a Marvel… edition: JustSomeRandomGuy does it again.

In what will surely be the first of many casting announcements for the FX pilot based on Powers, Charles S. Dutton has been cast as police department head Captain Cross, according to Deadline.

Dutton’s film experience ranges from appearances in Rudy, A Time to Kill and Legion, and starring in the ’90s Fox series Roc. In recent years, he’s appeared on TV in guest spots on House and CSI: NY.

In late March, reports circulated that Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler was being courted for lead role Christian Walker. Powers is based on the long-running creator-owned series by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming, starring Walker and Deena Pilgrim, a pair of homicide detectives who specialize in superpowered crimes.

On Thursday, April 28, the DC Bullets were supposed to match up against Archie Comics. It rained; the game was cancelled. This past Thursday, another match-up against a comics industry softball squad was missed when Wizard cancelled on the Bullets barely 24 hours before gametime. (If they weren’t already dead to me, they’d be dead to me now, I jested.) So the Bullets took the field anyway – those field permits are use ‘em or lose ‘em, after all.

After a productive practice, New York Community Bank showed up for a 7:00pm game on the same field. Except their opponent also stood them up. Rather than have both teams go home disappointed, the Bullets and NYCB opted to play a friendly few innings. In a lopsided four-inning affair, the Bullets emerged victorious, 23-10.

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Well, this isn’t good news: the ambitious, cross-medium adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower has been put on hold, according to Deadline. Pre-production staff have been put on hiatus, the site says, with executive producers Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman in talks with Universal as to how to proceed. Definitely out, apparently, is the September start date for the first movie, which then puts the following television season off until 2014 at the very earliest.

The idea of combining movies and television to tell one story with characters (and actors) crossing between the two was always a risky one – What if the movie flopped, or the TV show’s ratings were so low as to risk cancellation? Also, consider the amount of money that would have to be invested to make everything work the way it was planned – and it’s possible that the project has just become too rich for Universal’s tastes. Deadline suggests that the project may move to Warners, where Goldsman’s production company has an existing deal, but… it may be time to start preparing for the worst here.

Here’s a Flashpoint Friday question for you: Does this image of the first Flashpoint appearance of Mera mean that she’s one of Wonder Woman’s Furies, or just that Flashpoint means that female characters like wearing old-fashioned headgear?

Personally, I’m hoping it’s the latter – Maybe DC will giveaway free helmets for all female readers as a special promotion for the series.