Guys, when did you get to the point where you need this much hand-holding to enjoy your comics? It’s baffling to me–maybe because when I was a reader, this kind of thing came up all the time, and nobody thought anything of it. We either figured it out for ourselves, or waited and the answers revealed themselves. But it seems like now many of you guys are hovering on the balls of your feet looking for there to be something that’s not immediately spelled out so that you can kvetch about it. None of this is really that hard, at least from my point of view, and most often the answer comes down to “Wait for the next issue!” or “Don’t judge based on the four pages that are previewed on line, wait for the whole thing!” Is part of the enjoyment for some of you folks complaining about this stuff?

Tom Brevoort figures out the schimpfenfreude* of the Internet, it seems.

It’s an interesting question, though; are today’s readers complaining more about gaps in storytelling that would, in the past, have been filled in or glossed over by the reader? I’m uncertain as to whether or not that’s the case; there are certainly series that have had problems with narrative structure and/or explaining away things that haven’t just been solved by waiting to read the whole story, but in the case of complaining about the previews for Avengers vs. X-Men #7, there is a sense of “You’ve read three pages. Wait and see the whole book already,” definitely.

Part of me wonders whether the complaints are brought on by the nature of the Internet itself; that releasing the preview pages invites comment in a “nature abhors a vacuum” sense – not to mention the “First!” phenomenon where, whether the media or online commenters rush to have the earliest reaction to something regardless of whether or not there’s actually anything to say – and so there’s little point complaining about reaction to incomplete material when you’re the ones releasing said incomplete material in the first place and thereby inviting those comments.

Then again, my only complaint about the preview is that the X-Men seem to be acting like generic bad guys all of a sudden, so what do I know?

(* Warning: Contains made-up German words)

Here’s another synergetic move from Marvel:

There was no listing for the Jeff Parker Hulk series for September, starring the General Ross Red Hulk and assorted Hulk cast, but Marvel reassured Bleeding Cool that, even after the comic deals with the Mayan end of the world, the comic hadn’t been cancelled.

Which is technically true, it seems. In that Bleeding Cool have been told that the series is being relaunched with the same editorial and creative team, but with a title that matches the new cartoon, Hulk And The Agents Of Smash.

However, continuity, characters and plots will continue from the Hulk title.

As much as I find the “Agents of SMASH” thing borderline ridiculous, the idea that Jeff Parker will be the one handling it makes me very confident of the book’s quality; not only has Parker’s Hulk run been the most fun a Hulk book has been in a good number of years (for me, at least), but the idea that he’ll get to handle Rick Jones’ A-Bomb on a regular basis makes me very happy indeed. Now, to wait to find out who’ll be announced as the book’s artist…

With the latest “This is War” teaser from Marvel, now we have a better idea of what’s behind the images. As is pointed out, the heavy artillery in the Spider-Man tease matches the bullets in Iron Man’s armor from the earlier tease, and also points in the direction of Frank Castle. Oh, and how did the last Punisher solicit end?

The Punisher and Cole reach a shared conclusion. Prepare for the War Zone.

Well, now we know why all will be revealed at the Spider-Man panel; The Punisher comes out of the Spider-Man office, with Steve Wacker as editor. So, is this a “real” Punisher Vs. The Marvel Universe…?

Forget Twilight, Iron Man 3 or whatever else you might be looking forward to at Comic-Con International this year — there’s a new must-see panel. And it’s Larry King interviewing Peter Cullen, the long-time voice of Optimus Prime.

In the most bizarrely delightful news of the day, the 78-year-old former host of Larry King Live will be going one-on-one with Cullen as part of The Hub’s Transformers Prime panel, according to The New York Times. Of course, Larry King doesn’t have much (well, anything) to do with Transformers, but it appears The Hub wanted a host with a certain gravitas — the article reports that James Lipton of Inside the Actors Studio was also considered, but was out of the channel’s price range. The panel is set for 6 p.m. on Friday, July 13, in room 23ABC at the San Diego Convention Center. (The full slate of Thursday programming was announced today, more on that here.) Full panel description after the jump.

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Grant Morrison describes MorrisonCon, the forthcoming con-as-curated-panels-and-parties-experience:

Well, 2012 is the year of the Mayan apocalypse and we reach the omega axis of Terence McKenna’s Timewave Zero graph so on the off-chance the world is about to undergo a radical and unprecedented shift in consciousness and/or translation into higher dimensional space, we’re here to help kick it off. So I suppose this is what might have once been described as a Happening. If anything, it’s going to be more like one of those life-changing, paradigm-shifting weekends where everyone goes mad and sees flying saucers.

The September event has already sold out of its cheapest tickets, according to the Hero Complex report, leaving just the $699-1,099 packages available for those who want to attend the “one-off, unique event which will never be repeated,” as Morrison puts it. If you look at it as “Well, the world as we know it might end in December,” then the “will never be repeated” part takes on a particular finality that makes that price tag look more than worth it.

I asked my parents how… where they could find older issues of comics? And they said that they had found a store that sold nothing but comic books. A comic book shop. My mind was completely blown. I asked that they take me. Immediately. They explained it was closed Christmas Day, like everything else.

Chris Butcher explains his origins with comic books and comic book stores, and the excitement he describes upon discovering that there were actually stores that sold nothing but comics is very familiar to me. My first store was in Glasgow, about 45 minutes drive from where I lived as a kid, and was called Futureshock. It was kind of a mess, with books stacked up with no rhyme or reason, and piles just about to fall all over the floor, but that just made it more magical to the ten year old I was at the time. Almost every comic store I’ve been to ever since has been far better organized, cleaner and in almost every objective way more appealing, but none of them have come close to filling me with the sense of amazement and wonder that Futureshock used to.

There’s a spectacularly interesting conversation between the two chief movie critics at the New York Times about the dominance of super-hero movies, why it happened and what it means in the NYT today, and it includes this great bit from AO Scott:

What the defensive fans fail or refuse to grasp is that they have won the argument. Far from being an underdog genre defended by a scrappy band of cultural renegades, the superhero spectacle represents a staggering concentration of commercial, corporate power. The ideology supporting this power is a familiar kind of disingenuous populism. The studios are just giving the people what they want! Foolproof evidence can be found in the box office returns: a billion dollars! Who can argue with that? Nobody really does. Superhero movies are taken seriously, reviewed respectfully and enjoyed by plenty of Edmund Wilson types.

We’ve made it, people. It just might not have been the “it” that people were expecting, is all. Seriously, go read the back-and-forth.

Another hero from Marvel comic books is coming to the big screen, but it’s not from Marvel Studios — and it may not be a character you’re familiar with.

Deadline reported Wednesday that The Human Fly is in development as an independent production executive produced by Eisenberg-Fisher Productions, with a screenplay from Cirque Du Soleil historian Tony Babinski. The Human Fly ran as a Marvel series for 19 issues starting in 1977, featuring a hero based on real-life stuntman Rick Rojatt — thus the tagline “The wildest super-hero ever — because he’s real!” The character is unrelated to the long-running Marvel villain of the same name, who recently appeared in Venom.

Though the Human Fly interacted with Marvel Universe characters including Ghost Rider in Human Fly #2,  like Micronauts, Rom: Spaceknight and other licensed ’70s Marvel titles, the publisher no longer has an association with the property.

Steve Holland takes a look back at Near Myths, the British indie anthology from the 1970s that launched the careers of Bryan Talbot and Grant Morrison:

Back in the 1970s Science Fiction Bookshop was run by Rob King who, for a while at least, was also an editor and publisher. The comic magazine that he published under the Galaxy Press imprint was called Near Myths and, while it only ran for five issues, it has achieved near mythical status itself as the first home of Bryan Talbot’s Adventures of Luther Arkwright as well as Grant Morrison’s earliest published work. While four of the five issues had the tag “For Adults” on the front cover, the magazine described itself inside as “primarily for adults although it is suitable for older children.”

There’s the “mature readers” label we should be looking for… According to this piece, there was apparently a never-published sixth issue of the series that featured early Morrison work, edited by Talbot. Screw Miracleman, this is the new piece of lost comic history that I want someone to reprint…

Dave Sim has finally announced the first collection of his post-Cerebus project, glamourpuss… But for those expecting a thick phonebook-style edition, think again:

Coming soon, the collected glamourpuss – Volume One (Issues 1-25). The first collection of Dave Sim’s glamourpuss will be a DVD collecting PDFs of every page of issues 1-25 of glamourpuss including all variant covers as well as hi-resolution digital scans of the original artwork of every page before lettering.

While I love the idea of the collection including unlettered art pages, I can’t help but feel that the format is stubbornly old-fashioned. In today’s era of digital releases available for download, putting out PDFs via DVD is either horrifically out of step, or hilariously off-kilter a choice to make.

Well, if nothing else, this is certainly a change from media outlets ruining stories the day ahead of publication. Fox News, of all places, reveals the answer to “Who is Alpha?” tease for August’s 50th anniversary issue of The Amazing Spider-Man (Spoilers for those who don’t want to know, of course. Everyone else, click through the jump): (more…)

Superman and Batman will be in a movie together. But it’s not Justice League — at least, not yet.

As reported by Variety, the Lego minifigure versions of both characters will be part of the forthcoming live-action/animated hybrid film Lego: The Piece of Resistance, scheduled for Feb. 28, 2014. Thus far, the film has cast Up All Night/Arrested Development actor Will Arnett as Batman, and is looking to court Channing Tatum as Superman, who hasn’t yet committed — Tatum previously worked with Lego directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller on this year’s successful comedy 21 Jump Street. Robot Chicken’s Chris McKay will co-direct.

Parks and Recreation co-star Chris Pratt will voice the lead character Emmet, an “ordinary, law-abiding Lego mini-figure who is mistaken for the most extraordinary Masterbuilder. He’s drafted into a fellowship of strangers on a quest to stop an evil tyrant from gluing the universe together.”

Lego and Warner Bros. have previously partnered on several projects featuring Lego versions of DC characters, including the Lego Batman video games, the second of which was released earlier this month. (Review here.)

(Art shown from Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes game.)

And here’s more evidence for those wishing to suggest that a certain mid-credits cameo from Marvel’s The Avengers is just the first stepping stone towards a future Guardians of The Galaxy movie:

Marvel Comics have just filed eleven new trademark applications for GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY covering everything from jewelery to beverages to furniture to cosmetics. The applications cover International Classes 3, 14, 16, 20, 24, 29, 30, 32, 35, 41, 42, and also include computer games, fabrics, foods, paper goods, entertainment and internet services, and even retail store services.

With the characters showing up again, surprisingly, in the movie-centric Avengers Assemble title, it would seem likely that this is something that is on Marvel Studios’ radar for sooner, rather than later (Although, presumably, some point after the next Avengers movie. So, maybe three to five years from now…?). But will the name refer to the current comics incarnation, the original version of the team (pictured, in case you’re wondering who those guys were), or something and someone else altogether? After all, if the Avengers went into space, couldn’t they be called the Guardians of the Galaxy? Subtitles need trademarks too, after all…

Now that we’ve got Captain America’s blood-spattered shield joining a burning Wolverine and a dropped Thor hammer in the “This Is War” teasers from Marvel, it has to be said: Enough already. September’s solicits for Marvel are already promising the end of the world or something just as dramatic as Avengers Vs. X-Men draws to an end, and the very next month there’s going to be some kind of new war that’s got all these (melo)dramatic teasers? Clearly, I’m getting too old for superhero comics, because I’m having fond memories of the days when big storylines would be followed by issues of the characters recovering, maybe playing a little baseball, having angst-ridden mental soliloquies, that kind of thing. Now, it seems, we’re literally headed from event to event with no breathing room in between, and instead of feeling excited, I feel exhausted.

It doesn’t help that it’s War in these teasers, a word that has similar weight at Marvel as “Crisis” does for DC. Between Secret War, Ultimate War, Civil War, Silent War, Chaos War and countless other wars that I’ve probably forgotten about (Oh! War of Kings, of course), the word has become almost meaningless in its attempt to suggest epic bombast, just like… Well, like the sight of Cap’s shield either cracked or splattered with blood, really. There’s an amazing sense of deja vu from these trailers that’s unfortunate, especially considering that Avengers Vs. X-Men was already treading in “Haven’t I seen superheroes punching each other a lot recently in Civil War and X-Men: Schism?” waters. Here’s hoping that, when the project is revealed at SDCC in a few weeks’ time – Online scuttlebutt has it being either Bendis and Hitch’s long-coming (and completed, but unscheduled) Ultron storyline or Dan Slott’s even-more-long-coming “Reckoning War” idea finally coming to fruition – the actual details will make the event seem more new and interesting than these images.

It’s a possibility that this may be the most self-referential nerddom seen in quite some time:

WizKids has announced the July release of Comic-Con The Movie Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope HeroClix Combo Pack (MSRP $29.99), which will include a DVD of Morgan (Supersize Me) Spurlock’s documentary about Comic-Con that follows the adventures of five fans attending the 2010 Comic-Con event plus HeroClix figures of Stan Lee, Joss Whedon, superfan Harry (Ain’t It Cool News) Knowles, and Morgan Spurlock.

For those paying attention at home, that means that this summer sees Stan Lee becoming immortalized in plastic as well as in playable video game character form. Pretty impressive for a man who’s pushing ninety years old.

This is spectacular: Steve Cook, former 2000AD designer, as well as photographer and artist, has been putting up the original production boards from The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic throughout the 1970s and ’80s on his blog. You get to see the original garish colors (So bright, in part because of the printing process, and in part because that was the aesthetic of the comic) while reliving some classic Thrill Power…

(Via)

A must-listen for fans of Powers is this week’s Nerdist Writers Panel, in which screenwriter/showrunner Chic Eglee gives a fairly substantial update about what’s happening with the FX TV show based on the series. The short version is that it’s not dead, despite the various setbacks that it’s suffered through; the network has ordered three more scripts, and the pilot will (hopefully – he’s not definite on this fact) be reshot after being re-worked significantly to tone down the more outre genre elements. Here’s how he explained what had happened to the original pilot, and how the show will be different for the second go-round:

I spent a week with Bendis up in Portland, you know, really trying to nail down a very simple mythology that’s easily articulated to – We were talking about this a little bit earlier. One of the reasons why we’re re-doing the pilot… The fan base seemed to grasp the show, it tested very well, people who were used to genre storytelling. The broader audience – read, “older audience” – was like “Holy shit, when did this happen? People could fly around and do all this shit?” and they really lacked context, and they, you know, it’s like you were saying about Superman. Why give a shit if this guy could do anything? So what we’ve done is to sit down and really come up with, we’ve spent a lot of time just nailing down the mythology.

Especially if you’re doing a cop show in a post-CSI era, you know, it’s really got to be bulletproof, because it’s a very smart audience that’s out there. You can’t just be pulling stuff out of your ass week to week. So we’ve actually tried to come up with – That’s different, by the way, from Bendis’ world; there’s a lot of slipping and sliding, and I say this with all envy, that Brian is able to do that in the graphic novel[s], but different powers, and able to change dimensions and time, and a TV audience doesn’t get invested in somebody that’s been around for 30,000 years and if they get killed then they’re gonna reincarnate, it’s too hard to explain. Especially for me, coming out of more linear procedural kinda stuff, I’m less interested in writing that. So what we’ve tried to do is really establish the laws of physics for our show, and actually put underneath a kinda metaphysical underpinning to it, that could have some semblance in reality if one were of a metaphysical stripe. So that it’s not just pure science-fiction, and somebody’s from Alpha Centauri and everybody on Alpha Centauri has these powers.

It’s significantly different from the comic book, but it serves our world really well.

He also revealed the structure of the first season, as it currently stands: “Who Killed Retro Girl” will serve as a running plot throughout the entire season – Yes, Powers will be the superhero The Killing – with each episode having its own narrative arc within that larger structure (He purposefully didn’t say that each episode would have its own crime, interestingly enough). The show, he said, is really about Christian Walker as “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” and who finds out how to be a regular human through his job.

I’m not enough of a Powers fan to know whether or not this sounds promising for those who adore the comic. What say you, Powers fans?

Maybe I missed an earlier official announcement of this elsewhere, but at the Comics Reporter today, Ed Brubaker confirmed that he’s off Captain America soon:

By the time this interview comes out, I will have written my last issue… I hit a point with the work-for-hire stuff where I was starting to feel burned out on it. Like my tank is nearing empty on superhero comics, basically. It’s been a great job, and I think I found ways to bring my voice to it, but I have a lot of other things I want to do as a writer, too, so I’m going to try that for a while instead.

This doesn’t mean he’s leaving Marvel entirely, however:

[Winter Soldier is] going to be my only Marvel book soon. I’ll do The Winter Soldier as long as it lasts… or, I’ll do it for as long as I can. [Spurgeon laughs] Because I don’t know if it’ll last, but I’m really proud of that book and the second and third storylines on it are some of my favorite stuff I’ve done for Marvel, ever.

Chalk up another book that looks like it’ll be getting a major overhaul post-Avengers vs. X-Men. Brubaker leaving Cap feels like it’s a big deal – Not only has he been working on the franchise for almost a decade, but he’s revitalized the character and – let’s be honest – made him popular again in a way that he hasn’t been since… when? The ’80s, perhaps? It’s been an amazing run, with some genuinely incredible work. Whoever follows him, it’ll be a tough gig.

(Also, go read the whole Brubaker interview. It’s great stuff.)

Heidi Macdonald considers the failure of Lea Hernandez’ recent Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of The Garlicks:

Many comics projects have been funded well into five figures, but they started out at more modest levels. And there’s quite a conceptual shift between “getting paid to do something” and “Raising money to print something and create a community by sending out postcards and premiums.”We know several people whose great projects haven’t been funded; increasingly, it seems to be because they are more grounded in the former income model than the latter.

There’s a lot of worthwhile commentary to be found in the comments following the post, especially concerning what seems to be “acceptable” to fund via Kickstarter for people against what isn’t, and it’s… interesting and troubling. As Kickstarter goes from oddity to normalized part of the comic landscape, the adoption of “rules” for people about what is and isn’t acceptable is weirdly depressing – crowdsourcing funding seems to have already gone from a way to share/express enthusiasm for an idea to something more organized and regimented with set ideas about what should be allowed to be funded versus what shouldn’t be…

I’m more than a little fascinated by this roundtable with the people behind the new Valiant Comics, if only because they seem to be both forthcoming about the business and their enthusiasm about what they’re doing:

[Publisher, Fred] Pierce: We’ve been working on this quite a while, and we made a conscious effort not to promote everything too early so that all the air had come out of the balloon by the time we were talking to the retailers. Atom coming in was a huge step – having somebody that the retailers trust and somebody speaking their language. When we went to ComicsPRO we spoke to retailers a lot. And it’s a very, very credible team. You have Warren who was one of the top guys at Marvel and Atom who knows the industry from a retail perspective, and Hunter’s marketing has been great while Dinesh has been working on the creative for seven years now. It’s not like this was slapdash. We knew that in January, we’d come out guns blazing and then we’re lucky that everything hit and was respected and received well.

[Marketing Manager, Hunter] Gorinson: It was a very deliberative process. Each one of those things was meant to capture the interest of a certain segment of comics fans. We were very cognizant of the fact that not everyone reading comics today would know what Valiant Comics stood for historically or what the Valiant Universe was all about. So we wanted to make some noise and capture the attention of as many comic book readers we could and the attention of retailers in an intelligent and well-reasoned manner.

The first issue of XO Manowar sold through a first printing of 45,000, and is currently on its third print; for the first book from what’s essentially a new publisher, that’s pretty impressive.