As many of you are no doubt already aware, vengeful snow gods focused their wrath on Diamond HQ this week, temporarily destroying them and making their webiste un-look-at-able. This coincided with the time I normally put this column together, so there’s an even higher likelihood than normal that mistakes have been made. Also, no cartoon this week as, um, my colored pencils were buried in an avalanche, maybe…?

Anyway, here are some of the books coming out this week–provided your local comic shop hasn’t been buried under one million feet of snow…

The Anchor Vol. 1: I’ve really enjoyed the first few single issues of Phil Hester and Brian Churilla’s lighthearted series about a mysterious monster-fighter who exists simultaneously on the earthly and infernal planes, and, if you haven’t sampled the series yet, this $10, 110-page trade paperback is a pretty perfect way to do so. If you’re already on board, the fifth, $4 issue of the series is also due in shops this week. So let’s see, $10 plus $4 equals…lemme get a piece of paper for this…$14! Just $14 and you’re all caught up!

Batman and Robin #8: It’s part two of Cameron Stewart’s (way too) brief run on Grant Morrison’s Batman title, in which we find out what happens after Batman Dick Grayson (”DickBats”) lets the corpse of Batman Bruce Wayne (”OB”) marinate in a Lazarus Pit. What’s weird about this storyline is the fact that there seems to be at least two sets of Batman’s remains, as Black Hand has been lugging Batman’s skull around throughout Blackest Night. If this story is set before Blackest Night, it’s possible that Dick re-buries Batman’s body in the unmarked grave that Black Hand dug it out of, which sort of spoils the resurrection aspect of this story, and then Black Hand also brings OB back to life temporarily. If it’s set after Blackest Night, then that means DickBats recovered Batman’s body and skull at the end of Blackest Night, put it in a vault, then decided to take it out of the vault and try to bring it back to life, after Black Hand temporarily restored OB to life. Either way, it seems a little silly that Batman has been brought back to life so often in so short a span of time. But who cares?! Cameron Stewart drawing DickBats, Batwoman and Knight and Squire fighting undead Batman! It looks like this.

The Brave and the Bold: Milestone: If last week’s Milestone Forever whet your appetite for more appearances by the Milestone characters, this collection of three issues of DC’s team-up title—featuring Black Lightning and Static, Blue Beetle and Hardware and The Spectre and Xombi—may be of interest. The $18, 160-page trade paperback is filled out by three issues of the Milestone characters’ original series.

The Choker #1: Artist Ben Templesmith and writer Ben McCool do noir. It’s a $4 comic, and you can see a ton of stuff about it here.

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On the sassiness of Ebony White: Tom Crippen notes the bit of DC’s First Wave promotional material referring to a new version of The Spirit and a new version of Ebony, and has some objections.

Go for the drawing of Batman eating cake Batmanly…: Stay for Kurt Busiek’s essay on why Batman isn’t the Green Lantern of Sector 2814, and extended references to comic book characters and concepts as cakes and frosting which have made me very, very hungry for cake.

“Five Worst Batman Villains”: I imagine fans will find a lot to bicker with Tim O’Neil about in his list of the very worst Batman villains—and pretty thorough explanations for why is each is included. After all, The Joker’s on that list. O’Neil makes some pretty convincing arguments though, and I wholeheartedly agree with a couple of these (Particularly Ra’s al Ghul. That guy’s been  in more Batman comics than Alfred these the last few years). In defense of Mr. Zsasz though (well, in defense of his creators Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle), I think he was created just to be a one-off villain used in “The Last Arkham” and then forgotten about, and it’s all the other creators who keep insisting on using him that have made him so terrible (Also, in his first appearance, he dressed up in tuxedos and wore a top hat…how come he’s always running around nearly nude now?)

Maybe Watchmen spin-offs won’t be so bad after all: Tom Spurgeon has a pitch for a four-issue limited series featuring a character you probably didn’t see coming.

“Smallville’s two-hour ‘event,’ the introduction of the Justice Society of America… was alternately endearingly clunky and just plain old clunky”:
Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker on the Smallville JSA special.  Isn’t it sorta weird that the Smallville-iverse is on its second Star-Spangled Kid  before there was even a Superman?

True horror: So, you thought Michael Leavitt’s three-foot-tall, fully-articulated wooden R. Crumb sculpture was horrifying when you first saw it? Well, wait till you see it move! (Via Flog!)

Cory and Eric’s father must just be constantly looking for an opportunity to delve into a complicated geopolitical topic and/or an excuse to tell the life story of one of his ancestors.

How else to explain the fact that when he and his wife end up refereeing a conflict between their boys, involving Eric stopping Cory from buying a particular type of candy, because the older, wise brother knew it contained an ingredient the younger one didn’t really like, he boils it down thusly:

You know, you boys aren’t the first to argue over this principle…You’re arguing whether or not one entity—in your case, a person, but sometimes we’re talking about a country—can take away another’s capacity to act on its own choices.

After a little back and forth between the four members of the family, the patriarch launches into the story of Corporal Peter Crogan of the Foreign Legion, who naturally had to face the issues revolving around the ethics of imperialism as part of his job, occupying and defending swathes of North Africa for France, whether the native people wanted him to do so or not.

If I were Cory or Eric, I’d be afraid to open my big mouth around my dad…or maybe not, depending on how great a storyteller he is.

Writer/artist Chris Schweizer cuts away from the kitchen scene set-up in Crogan’s March (Oni Press) to present the story of Crogan as an unfiltered comics story, so we don’t hear exactly what the dad says or how he says it, but he must know how to tell a story, given the wide-eyed, slack-jawed looks of awe on the two boys’ faces when we return to the kitchen after hearing about Crogan’s story.

Schweizer, however,  sure knows how to tell one.

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Aw thanks, Boom Studios! I didn’t know you cared! The publisher, which currently holds the licenses on a bunch of Disney characters and concepts and has been making fine use of many of them, has put together a heck of a Valentine’s Day present for fans of classic comics featuring the core Disney mouse and duck characters.

The 130-page, six-story collection is similar in scope and format to the publisher’s 2009 Walt Dinsey’s Christmas Classics collection, with the stories selected comprising a sampling of work from various eras, creators and countries of origin (In fact, every decade between the ‘40s and the ‘80s is represented by a story in here).

The highlight is probably the lead story, 1941’s “Love Trouble” by Floyd Gottfredson, Merril de Maris and Bill Wright. At 36 pages, it’s the longest piece, and features the story of Minnie finding a new, much taller, more charming, more talented and more well-off boyfriend than Mickey, Montmorecny Rodent (although he pronounces it “Rodawn”). Humiliated over and over, and unable to compete, Mickey fights fire with fire by taking up with a beautiful, rich, blonde mouse new to town, and then proceeds to couple-stalk Minnie and Rodent, driving Minnie insane with envy.

Given the way they behave to one another, and use other people (er, “people” probably isn’t the right word…), I’m not sure what the two mice see in each other, but I suppose they’re better off together than inflicting their social dysfunctions on others. Just I suppose I have now thought way too much about the love lives of two cartoon mice from a fast-paced, lovingly and energetically drawn screwball comedy comic strip.

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“This series of books are destined to join the ranks of ‘The Dark Knight Returns,’ ‘Watchmen,’ and ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ as a serious contribution to adventure comic books”: Stephen Tramontana really, really likes DC’s Blackest Night event, and hopes this particular story will begin “the era where the gimmicks stopped, and good storytelling took the priority.” Stephen Tramontana is going to be sorely disappointed, but his hopefulness is appreciated—get that man a blue ring.

Were any of you wondering if Disney’s ownership of Marvel was going to result in tamer imagery and more kid-friendly comics?: I think that one scene in this week’s issue of Siege oughta answer that question pretty decisively, huh?

Something interesting almost happened in Blondie this week, but then didn’t: That’s okay though, as R.C. Harvey took the opportunity to explore some of the visual peculiarities of Dagwood Bumstead’s character design in this piece for The Comics Journal.

Three great things that go AWESOME together: John Porcellino, Devil Dinosaur and Morrissey. God I love you, Internet.

Armagideon Time celebrates the month of February in the traditional way: By posting a panel of Jack of Hearts every day of the month. Yeah, that’s right—Jack of Hearts. It just goes to show that every character is someone’s favorite (Except, of course, for all these guys).

“Rugg says that of all his projects, Afrodisiac is the most personal, or as personal as a comic about a super-pimp can be”: Zack Smith pens a great profile of Afrodisiac artist Jim Rugg for Indy Week.

Lame headline, great piece: Dave Howard has a wide-ranging Q and A with retailer, blogger and Toronto Comic Arts Festival director Chris Butcher for Torontoist.

Ch-ch-ch-changes: As you’re no doubt already aware, Heidi MacDonald has relocated her popular comics blog The Beat from its old Publisher’s Weekly locale in cyberspace to comicsbeat.com. Please update your bookmarks, and join me in wishing Heidi and everyone at The Beat the best of luck. Meanwhile, frequent Linkarama person-getting-linked-to Chris Sims has announced he’ll be quitting his day job at a comics shop to focus on his writing full-time, which is great news for fans of Sims’ writing. Perhaps that means he will be the person DC taps to write Watchmen 2 (He’s been tweeting some pretty great ideas on the subject), or maybe just more great pieces like his article on “The Racial Politics of Riverdale” over at Comics Alliance. Finally, retailer and blogger Mike Sterling is messing around with his site, which I remark upon because Sterling’s was one of the first and finest comics blogs I encountered, and because, as a comic book fan, I find even the slightest change in something I’ve become accustomed to worthy of comment. As long as his site remains the number one source for Sluggo-focused weekend content though, I’m sure everything will be okay.

I hope so, because that’s what I’m doing at the moment. Just the rumor of the possibility of more Watchmen comics of any kind that David just mentioned below has got plenty of comics folks talking—I’m still sifting through my Google News hits of responses—and, of course, tweeting.

Writer Mark Waid was among those doing the latter:

—Wow, this seems like a bad day to announce that I’ve been tapped by DC to write DK3.

—Big news day for me and I’ve been cleared to announce it! Next summer, Paul Azaceta and I will be doing NEW FRONTIER 2: NEWER FRONTIER!

—I’m sorry. My bad. I meant to say NEW FRONTIER 2: FRONTIER HARDER.

Oh, that Mark Waid is a delight, and that’s before he even brings up Maus 2.

In all seriousness, if someone at DC is seriously considering moving forward with Watchmen projects, they sure picked a weird time to do so (Wouldn’t maybe sometime around the movie have been better? That whole “striking while the iron is hot” idea? Or maybe on an anniversary of the book’s publication?).

Remember, it’s still just rumors and chatter at this point, although a quote from Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes regarding “plans to mine more aggressively the deep catalogue of DC Comics characters” a quarterly earnings report sounds like possible support.

Personally, I sort of hope cool heads at DC and Warner listen to all the hand-wringing and joke-cracking like Waid’s and think better of Watchmen prequels, sequels, crossovers or stories from the squid’s point of view (Are there honestly any stories about those Charlton analogues that can’t be told using the actual Charlton characters DC also owns?). But, in all honesty, I am almost positive more Watchmen would make financial sense, and the publishing business is a business.

Even if they found creators who would take such a daunting challenge/rather tasteless assignment, even if it turned out terrible and every single person who read it hated it and/or only bought it to make fun of it on the Internet (like, say Ultimates 3 or Ultimatum, both of which sold gangbusters), it would certainly make a decent profit.

It shouldn’t be hard to crunch the numbers on Dark Knight Strikes Again, which most readers seemed to hate (I loved it, by the way) and see how much money that made, or to look at Blackest Night and see how much money the publisher can make by taking some old Alan Moore ideas and letting the right creator run wild with ‘em.

It might be better to wait until Alan Moore passes away to start aggressively exploiting his take on some DC-owned characters, but maybe the decision makers will feel better doing so while Moore’s still alive. After all, now all he’ll be able to do is make fun of them; once he’s dead, maybe he’ll be able to haunt them.

Well, the poster design is a winner: Here’s an image from the marketing for the new Losers movie, based on the Vertigo series by Andy Diggle and Jock:

Look familiar? It should. Here’s Jock’s cover to The Losers #12:

I prefer the crotch-in-your-face covers from #1 and #32, but that’s still pretty cool. The trailer looks awfully promising, too.

“In recent weeks, it seemed as though every other Marvel periodical I picked up featured an appearance by the original Captain America”: Don MacPherson managed to save up all his various Captain America comics set after the release of Captain America: Reborn #6, and thus was able to read and review ‘em all in order. Even in the proper order though, he was less than impressed.

Should Fergie play the lead in a Wonder Woman movie (if they ever get around to making one?): I don’t know, but USA Today was quite impressed with how Wonder Womanly she looked in her Grammys outfit with her hands on her hips. Meanwhile, Heidi “The Beat” MacDonald examined the evening’s fashion choices, and found a lot of parallels to superheroes and sci-fi. Is Black Lantern the new black?

The worst idea for a comic book movie I’ve heard in hours: The headline to this Hero Complex story says it all—”‘Sgt. Rock’ reloads as a movie project—but not as a WWII story.” Geoff Boucher interviews producer Joel Silver, who said the project is going to be set in the near future, as the idea was to be a war movie about where it’s going, rather than where it’s been. Well, I’m not a move producer, so I’ll just have to assume Silver knows what he’s talking about. A Rock movie set outside WWII sounds a little like a  an Enemy Ace movie about an American fighter pilot during the first Gulf War to me though.

Good luck with the cover credits this time!: “Second ‘Bat-Manga’ Volume In the Works”

I want to write an ongoing licensed 90210 comic book series, but that doesn’t mean I should: “Matthew Vaughn Wants To Make Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.”

Actually, the lamp that Radical Publishing’s Aladdin doesn’t have a singing, dancing, Robin Williams-sounding-like blue genie in it. Instead, it’s got a kinda scary-looking red djinn, which goes the entire first issue of Radical’s Aladdin: Legacy of the Lost without impersonating Ed Sullivan or Joan Rivers even once. The story is somewhat parallel to the more-familiar Disney version, given that they’re both built on the same skeleton of a story, but Radical’s is obviously a bit more serious and grim, replacing funny animals with cool-looking monsters.

Ian Edington writes, Patrick Reilly draws (with Stjepan Sejic joining him next issue), and it’s $5 for 64 musical number-free pages. What else is due out this week, and will any of those books have musical numbers in them? Join me after the jump for the answer to the first question…as to the second, I won’t know until I read the rest of ‘em, but I’m guessing none of ‘em do.

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In last week’s Amazing Spider-Man #619, Spider-editor Stephen Wacker devoted a full third of the “Amazing Spider-Mail” letter column to addressing Marvel’s new relationship with Disney, and what he hopes will bloom from that relationship.

If you haven’t read the issue yet (And you should have! Marcos Martin’s art is about as gorgeous as comic book art can get!), let me quote Wacker for you.

“Now I could go on an don about all the great Disney animated films I enjoyed in my youth and even now with my own kids,” he writes.  “But I think I speak for everyone at Marvel when I say I’m most proud of being associated with the company that brought us Condorman.”

Unfamiliar with Condorman? You and most everyone else. It’s a 1981 superhero/spy spoof in which cartoonist and comic book writer Woody Wilkins (played by Michael Crawford), creates his own Condorman costume, complete with a flapping hang glider like set of wings, in order to ensure the veracity of his comics creation.

“If Condorman can’t do something in real life, then I won’t have him do it one of my comic books!” he tells his friend early in the film, explaining his form of method comic book making. “Kids all over the world read my stuff, they trust me. They know if I fake it.”

He gets his chance to play hero for real when his buddy, a file clerk with the CIA, enlists his aid in what’s supposed to be a simple mission. I imagine hilarity ensues, but I had to stop watching it before any actual hilarity began ensuing, on account of the fact that watching Condorman seemed to be physcially hurting me.

It did poorly at the box office in 1981, accrued plenty of bad reviews the year of its initial release (and it’s got a 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment) and it isn’t particularly fondly remembered by anyone—except for Steve Wacker.*

Wacker again:

Dear new corporate overlords…in all humility I beg you to please—as your first order of business—let us here at Spidey Sentral take the first comic crack at this wonderfully winged character, restoring this feathered, falcon-esque funseeker to the heights he so rightly earned in the barely seen, hardly remembered 1981 feature film.

(Actually, I think a Wacker-edited Condorman comic would be the second comic crack that this wonderfully winged character).

Wacker ends his plea with a call to action, asking that “letters of support” be sent to “LET WACKER BRING BACK CONDORMAN c/o Spider-Man Office” at Marvel’s address, 417 5th Avenue, New York, New York, 10016.

Personally, I was more looking forward to a Scarecrow of Romney Marsh comic, but I can get behind a Wacker-edited Condorman revival. Especially if he gets Martin to draw it. And makes whoever ends up scripting it adhere to Condorman’s own creative process of doing everything the character does in real life before putting it in a comic to make sure it’s realistic.

*Well, Steve Wacker and maybe Mike Sterling, whose posted about Condorman on more than one occasion.

Kate Beaton extrapolates some books by their covers: Using some Edward Gorey drawn book covers as a starting point, Beaton creates five three-panel comic strips summarizing what the books look like they’re about. The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats is particularly awesome.

“The list of films that pundits claim to be something other than what they appear is extensive”: I’m not sure if this article from the Sydney Morning Herald deserves much in the way of attention, even for the purposes of disagreeing with its position on whether or not critics should seek political meaning in popular films (The writer claims a scene from Reservoir Dogs is in Pulp Fiction, and doesn’t even seem to consider the possibility that it was a joke). Recent-ish  comic book blockbusters 300 and Iron Man are included in the list of movies he thinks are better off taken at face value though, so take a look if you’re interested.

Save the date: The film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World has an official release date of August 13. If you still haven’t read the series, that gives you about six months and two more weeks to do so.

“Yeah, I feel like I really got lucky with Jellaby, because I’m not 100% sure I really knew what I was doing or what I set out to do”: Here’s a nice, healthy-sized interview with Kean Soo conducted by one of his hometown media outlets. There’s a lot of focus on Soo originally got into art,  drawing and comics before delving into his signature work, Jellaby, which interviewer Dave Howard sums up rather succinctly as ” basically about a young girl and her non-imaginary dinosaur friend who she conceals from others.”

“Robin grew up, moved away, and became super-attractive”: An anonymous lady lists her top-five comic book crushes, including Nightwing, Green Arrow, “Spiderman” with no hyphen and two X-Men. I found Green Arrow the most shocking inclusion. Not if she’s talking Smallville Green Arrow of course, as he’s super-dreamy, but comic book Green Arrow is almost always presented as a middle-aged jerk with a funny beard, isn’t he? (Which makes him, like Hal Jordan and Hawkman, a character I like reading about despite disliking him intensely).

One day soon, everything will be have a graphic novel version: Not necessarily a good one, mind you. For example, this graphic novel adaptation of the Lutheran small cathecism looks even dryer and less engaging than the prose version. Did you know reading a newspaper is considered using a Satanic art, in violation of the second commandment…? That’s what I gather from the sample, anyway.

Attention publishers!: Looking for a good idea for a neat anthology project? The Comics Reporter’s most recent “Five For Fridays” asked readers to suggest five “Musical Acts Whose Songs You’d Like To See Made Into A Comics Anthology, as Tori Amos’ Work Was The Basis of 2008’s Comic Book Tattoo.” That netted about a billion suggestions, almost all of which would lead to some kick-ass comics collection.

More Swedish rap for your listening pleasure: Last Thursday I mentioned Simon Gärdenfors, one of the Swedish cartoonists whose work Top Shelf is helping introduce to the U.S. audiences as part of their “Swedish Invasion” initiative. His comic is called 120 Days of Simon, but in addition to comics-making, he’s also a rapper. If you’d like to hear what he sounds like while you’re waiting to see what his comics are like, Top Shelf has since sent along some links. Here are two songs from his Las Palmas project, in which he raps and Calle Thörn DJs (song one and song two), and here’s the song “Panik” from his Far & Son project, a collaboration between Simon G and Frej Larsson from the Swedish techno group Slagsmålsklubben. Impress your friends with your newfound knowledge of Swedish music!

“All without Pattinson. Without Lautner. And without the ever-so-sad-looking Stewart”: Writing for Creative Loafing’s blog, Ryan Jent talks about the upcoming Twilight graphic novel adaptation, and notes a positive angle—it will be divorced from a great deal of the baggage that the movies and the novels’ ensuing Beatlemania-like popularity have grafted onto the simple story of (Vampire) Boy meets Girl. (Also: good headline)

So how did Obama’s State of the Union address go Wednesday night?: You could listen to what various cable news pundits, newspaper writers and bloggers thought, or you could check out Daryl Cagle’s Political Cartoonists Index.

Good news for Captain Marvel fans: Chip Kidd answers a “what else are you working on” type question at the end of this interview by mentioning a coffee table art book on “the golden age of Captain Marvel.” If it’s half as good as his collaboration with Art Spiegelman on Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits, it should be something to see.

“In certain creative hands, in certain dramatic situations, the pleas, insults and hauntings of the dead can be delicious fun, inventive, cruel, horrible and ingenious”: Writing for The Comics Journal, Rich Kreiner has great praise for the Black Lantern zombies as being a vast improvement over regular old zombies, on account of the Lantern versions being much, much scarier. Unfortunately, the scariest part about them—that they were actually our heroes’ loved ones, back from the dead—was undercut by the knowledge that they were actually just faked copies early on in the storyline. But Kreiner’s not writing about Blackest Night as a story or an event; he’s simply focusing on the great idea at the start of it.

As funny as the article is, the comment section is practically guaranteed to be even more (inadvertently) hilarious: To mark the occassion of the current volume of Green Lantern hitting its fiftieth issue this past week, Comics Alliance’s Caleb Goellner and Chris Sims rate twenty-three Green Lanterns, from dimmest to brightest. Do note the placement of Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner on their list, and who tops the list as the best Green Lantern ever. There are only six comments as I type this, and already they’re fantastic. Why is it that the subject of Green Lanterns inflames the passions of comics fans on the Internet so?

And Top Shelf is collaborating with the foreign invaders—in fact, they’re rolling out a red carpet!

This spring Top Shelf is launching a “Swedish Invasion” initiative, in which they’re planning on introducing elements of Sweden’s vibrant alternative comics scene to American readers. In addition to publishing seven titles, they’re also bringing many of the cartoonists themselves over for a visit in April.

On April 9, Rocketship Comics in Brooklyn, New York will host about a dozen Swedish cartoonists, plus the Top Shelf crew, and that weekend they’ll all be appearing at the MoCCA Arts Festival (along with non-Swedish cartoonists Nate Powell, James Kochalka and Alex Robinson).

Later in the month, on April 17, Mats Jonsson, Kolbeinn Karlsson, Simon Gardenfors and company will be at Double Door in Chicago for a party (at which Gardenfors, a “well-known Swedish rapper”—four words I don’t hear grouped together in that particular order often enough—will also perform). That weekend, April 16-18, they’ll also be appearing at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo.

Of course, that probably doesn’t matter all that much to you if you don’t live in NYC or Chicago, or aren’t going to visit either town on those particular weekends. What does matter wherever you are and are interested in comics is what Top Shelf is publishing.

The books that are part of their “Swedish Invasion” initiative are…

—Hey Princess by Mats Jonsson, a $15, 470-page autobiographical graphic novel about moving to and trying to make it in the big city.

—120 Days of Simon by Simon Gardenfors, a $15, 415-page original graphic novel that resulted from the artist’s challenge to himself to spend 120 days away from home, with the stipulation that he couldn’t spend more than two nights in the same place. Epic adventures ensue.

—The Troll King by Kolbeinn Karlsson, a $15, 160-page, full-color fantasy graphic novel that sounds awesome: “A dwarf falls into a river and is taken to a place beyond space and time. A carrot takes a bath and finds itself transforming…Welcome to the surreal world of The Troll King.” I never knew how badly I wanted to read about a bathing carrot that finds itself transforming until just this moment!

—Second Thoughts by Niklas Asker, a $10, 90-page graphic novel about two artists who meet one another and share a moment in a London airport.

—From the Shadow of the Northern Lights Vols. 1 and 2 by Galago, a pair of 200-page anthology collections of  comics from Swedish magazine Galago, featuring, Top Shelf says, the work of the finest comics artists Sweden has to offer. My ignorance of Swedish comics art means I have to take their word for it.

—Swedish Comics History by Fredrick Stromberg, a $20, 125-page, nine-by-nine-inch softcover book devoted to the, um, history of Swedish comics, from ancient picture stories the Vikings etched in stone to the comics of today. Well not today-today, but the day Stromberg submitted the book to the publisher, I imagine.

“It really is hard to avoid the impression that this book exists for no other reason than that it currently makes just slightly more money than it loses”: Tim O’Neil can’t stop reading DC’s The Outsiders, a book he finds fascinating. He reviewed the first Dan DiDio/Philip Tan issue here, wondering at its very existence (Same goes for Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth and J. Michael Straczynski’s Brave and the Bold run). Speaking of the new Outsiders, Tucker Stone finishes off his Comics of the Weak column this week by taking a look at the art and arriving at a conclusion that just plain made me sad. Oh super-comics, you depress me so…

“You’ll be able take the Bif Bam Pow out of your own ear before you criticize it in another’s”: Speaking of comics breaking one’s heart, did everyone already read Tom Spurgeon’s excellent essay about some of the obvious (but apparently not thought about often enough) comics have changed in our lifetimes? If not, it’s not too late to do so!

“Old comics return in ‘Blackest Night’”: When DC announced their clever “undead” Blackest Night tie-ins, I wondered if the mainstream, not-comics media would find zombie comics about zombie characters an interesting enough hook for coverage. I haven’t seen much of that, but here’s an article from West Virginia University’s student paper at least using that angle in the headline for a story about the series/event.

“I’ll buy a few things, or possibly nothing. Because it’s less about consumption than ritual”: Jacob Lambert writes an opinion piece meditating on the changing nature of Philadelphia’s South Street for Philadelphia Weekly, at one point discussing one of the reasons he goes there weekly—to visit his local comic shop, whether or not he actually buys new comics there or not.

Billy Ray Cyrus, Marvel?: Maxim magazine lists “11 Celebrity Comics Books We Can’t Believe Exist.” I have to admit that while I can believe these all exist, there were a couple I didn’t know existed, like Marvel’s Billy Ray Cyrus comic (Hey, doesn’t his daughter have her own comic yet?) or Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s. (Oh, and this seems like as good a time as any to say, Hey DC! How about some Adventures of Jerry Lewis and Adventures of Bob Hope trades? Preferably of the Showcase Presents variety…?)

Reason #658 That Cliff Chiang Rules: Check out Chiang’s Imperial propaganda art for an set of Star Wars trading cards. Almost makes me want to take up arms against the rebel scum…

I guess they don’t call it a comic “strip” for nothing!: Josh Fruhlinger on yesterday’s Spider-Man newspaper strip: “Congratulations, Spider-Man! You have produced the most gratuitous and pointless instance of a lady taking her shirt off in the comics in the long history of that particular art form.” I guess you don’t need to pay for Marvel Comics if you wanna see MJ in her underwear anymore. Also on the subject of Frulinger and Spider-Man, Monday the comic strip commentator noted a typical act of heroism by the newspaper version of ol’ Webhead.

Afrodisiac: I could have sworn this had already came out, but there it is on the Diamond shipping list for this week’s releases. Well, this is Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca’s gorgeous original graphic novel (of sorts) dedicated to the title character, a sort of What If…Luke Cage Were a Pimp with Pheromone Super-Powers? story told in a variety of styles. Guest-starring Dracula, Hercules, Death and Richard Nixon. It’s $16 for a 96-page hardcover. Even if you don’t buy it, make sure you at least pick it up and flip through it this week, as it is one beautiful book—wonderfully designed and full of eye-candy artwork. You can see a preview here.

Amazing Spider-Man #619: I hereby move that Marvel re-title this comic book The Amazing Marcos Martin (Featuring Spider-Man). This is part two of Martin and writer Dan Slott’s Mysterio story.

Avengers: The Initiative #32: Marvel’s “superhero army” the Initiative find themselves fighting alongside the Dark Avengers against the forces of Asgard, and the solicitation makes it sound like some of the cast won’t survive. Given the minor Marvels and new characters that have always made up the team, that sounds likely and, in fact, that’s always been one of the more exciting aspects of the title—the characters always seemed more highly mutable (and expendable!) than those in most other Marvel books. Christos Gage writes and Mahmud Asrar draws. The other Siege books of the week are New Avengers #61, a $4 installment of Siege mastermind Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen’s ongoing, and Siege: Storming Asgard—Heroes and Villains, a $4 book that sounds like something between a book of profiles on the major players and some behind-the-scenes material.

Batman and Robin #7: Grant Morrison is joined by another new artistic collaborator as a third story arc begins—his Seaguy and Manhattan Guardian collaborator Cameron Stewart. (Hooray!) This arc is entitled “Blackest Knight” and will guest-star The Knight, The Squire and Batwoman.

Batman: Under The Cowl: This $18, 145-page trade paperback collects stories Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Chuck Dixon, Bill Willingham, Doug Moench, Andy Kubert, Mike McKone, Graham Nolan, Tom Fowler, Mike Gustovich and others. The theme is apparently Batman comics in which people-other-than-Bruce Wayne are in the Bat-costume, including Jean-Paul Valley, Dick Grayson, Damian al Ghul, Tim Drake and Terry McGinnis. Most of these stories have been collected elsewhere, and are chapters in bigger, longer narratives rather than standalone stories, but it’s not a bad sampler of various Batman creative teams over the course of the last two decades.

Captain America: Reborn #6: Weeks after other books spoiled the (admittedly, foregone conclusion of an) ending, the story of the original Cap’s rebirth sees completion. It’s by Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch, and will run you $4.

Green Lantern #50: This looks like a fairly big week for DC’s Blackest Night event. The book the event spun out of hits a big anniversary number, and writer Geoff Johns (who wrote the last 49) and current art team Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy celebrate with an over-sized, $3.99 issue. Johns also pens this week’s back-from-the-dead issue of Atom and Hawkman, featuring art by Ryan Sook and co-stars who are now on two different Lantern Corps. And, finally, James Robinson and Eddy Barrows continue their three-part story of what the JSA has been up to during all this in Blackest Night: JSA#2.

Justice League: Cry For Justice #6: James Robinson and Mauro Cascioli’s hilariously behind schedule miniseries staggers one more ponderous step towards its seventh and final issue. How comically behind schedule is Cry? Well, it’s set before Blackest Night, which is five-sevenths over, and the last three issues of JLoA have been set after the events of Cry’s last chapter. (By the way, does that mean JLoA #41, which also ships this week and features the debut of the new line-up, will be the first DC book set after Blackest Night wraps up…?) Both JLoA and Cry are $4, although Cry’s page count will, if the past five issues or any indication, include pages of prose back-matter to reach the 40-page page count indicated on dccomics.com

Kick Ass #8: It still boggles my mind that they managed to make a whole movie in the time it took Mark Millar and the usually speedy John Romita Jr. to produce eight issues of a comic book.

Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and The Avengers: While technically accurate, the title is perhaps a bit misleading. This $10, 95-page digest collects four issues of Marvel Adventures Super Heroes, only one of which features a Spider-Man team-up (With Tigra and She-Hulk, versus The Leader). Other heroes appearing include The Hulk, Hawkeye, Spider-Woman, Giant Girl, The Beast and The Blond Phantom. All four stories are written by Paul Tobin, and the art comes courtesy David Baldeon, Marcelo Dichiara, Denis Medri and Amilcar Pinna.

Robocop #1: Robocop is back again…again! This time Dynamite Entertainment is publishing the adventures of the half man, half mahine, all cop hero, and they’ve got Rob Williams writing and Fabiano Neves drawing.

Sword #21: Hey, I thought Marvel just canceled this…?

Teen Titans #79: Oh hey, remember how DC was integrating the Milestone Universe into the DC Universe? Whatever happened with that? Well, in this issue Static and his Titans teammates return to Dakota with him, in a story by the title’s apparently occasional “regular” writer Felicia D. Henderson and the art team of Joe Bennett and Jack Jadson. It’s a $4 book, but comes with the usual Ravager back-up.

Ultimate Comics Enemy #1: Apparently not content with writing one line-wide crossover event for Marvel, Brian Michael Bendis is also scrpting an Ultimate Comics event story, the universe’s first since it was relaunched post Ultimatum as “Ultimate Comics.” The solicitation is basically meaningless gibberish, so no guess as to what it’s about, beyond there being some kind of, you know, enemy involved. It’s going to be drawn by Rafa Sandoval, feature a cover by Ed McGuinness and carry the Ultimate Comics pricetag of $4.

Shocking, I know. Robert Buckley, the handsome young actor who played Kim Raver’s much-younger love interest in Lipstick Jungle and Clayton Evans on One Tree Hill, revealed in an interview with Jenna Busch for Popeater that he’s a comic book fan (Which is sort of a must rather than something to be ashamed of in today’s Hollywood, isn’t it?), and, when asked, that he’d ideally like to play Captain America (you can read the comics part of the conversation here).

Given the popularity and money involved with a successful superhero movie, is it really news that an up-and-comer would like to star in one featuring a popular hero? (As opposed to, say, Robert DeNiro announcing his intention to play Man-Thing). Apparently so, as MTV’s Splash Page and Comicbookmovie.com posted reports on the interview with headlines like “‘One Tree Hill’ actor…Wants to Wield Captain America’s ‘First Avenger’ Shield” and  “Rob Buckley Wants to Wield the Shield!” and…oh no, I’ve just done a post on it too! Now I’m part of the problem!

Sigh…

Well, what do you guys think? Has he got the chops to play Cap? He’s certainly got the looks and abs, although if he’s only 29 and looks younger, they’re gonna need to cast an awfully young Bucky Barnes…

Here’s something you don’t see every day: Praise for Marvel and Brian Michael Bendis’ “Dark Reign”…at The Comics Journal. It is, of course, highly qualified, and speaks only to the basic idea of “Dark Reign” as it was realized in Dark Avengers, not the line-wide, year-long branding exercise that it has since become. The author, Rich Kreiner, also had some kind words for the  beginning of the “New Krypton” storyline in DC’s Superman books.

“Brother, that’s eight years in the making. Take that, Siege!”: Tucker Stone talks about the biggest years-in-the-making pop comics event of 2010, and it’s neither Blackest Night nor Siege.

In retrospect, the first coupla Nightwing costumes weren’t so bad after all: Johnathan at Living Between Wednesdays unearthed some fan-submitted redesigns for the original Robin’s costume. David Mouillesea’s is my favorite, as it has Robin inexplicably grow a mustache to go with his new costume. I suppose that’s one way to show people you’re not a kid anymore, but still.

Now that’s an unusual creative team: Oprah-approved author Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth) and Mutts cartoonist Patrick McDonnel have collaborated on a picture book, Guardians of Being. The Summit Daily News has a brief story about it. How is it that this came out last October and I haven’t heard of it yet?

“Going to the gritty would be mistake for next ‘Spider-Man’ film”: You tell ‘em, Erin Nolan.

“They’d laugh, then turn the page and pretend it was something else”: Laurel Maury on Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons for the San Francisco Chronicle.

“…but it’s actually an issue banging on about the Sentry’s back story.  Apparently he might be Jesus or something”: That’s from Paul O’Brien’s mini-review of last Wednesday’s issue of Dark Avengers. He calls the issue “a bit of a mess,” but I’ve got to admit, The Sentry-as-Jesus sort of makes me want to read it…

Kevin Smith talks—well, tweets—about his next Bat-work: On his Twitter account yesterday, the writer/director-turned-casual comics writer let loose some details about what he and his Batman: Cacophony collaborator Walter Flanagan will be doing after the sixth issue of their current limited series ships:  1) The Baphomet solo series he had previously mentioned is actually going to be called Gotham Babylon, rather than Baphomet (which is too bad…I was really looking forward to the mainstream media hearing about a book called Baphomet from the publishers of Superman), 2) Gotham Babylon will apparently be a limited series, with a second volume of Widening Gyre starting after it finishes, and 3) A second volume of Widening Gyre will follow a new new hero.

Reminder #357, 654: Comics are a medium, not a genre. Also, there’s a hyphen in “Spider-Man.” Also, there’s a hyphen in “X-Men.” Hey that’s three strikes! This crazy blog is out!

“Spider-Man reboot gets director Marc Webb”: I have this suspicion that (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb got the gig of a directing a fourth Spider-Man film because some executive was leaning back in his chair and free associating, thinking “Spider-Man…does what a spider can…spiders spin webs…Oh my God! Get Marc Webb on the phone!”

The #1 reason I wish I was wealthy (today): So I’d be able to bid on and win Evan Dorkin’s totally awesome Marvel villains group shot. You can see Dorkin’s piece here at his home base, or here, nestled among a bunch of other pieces of art up for auction.  (By the way, Juan Doe sure does a fine Spidey drawing, doesn’t he?)

Yesterday Entertainment Weekly teased their coverage of the upcoming Twilight: The Graphic Novel online, with the cover, a one-page excerpt, and a snippet of an interview with Stephenie Meyer. The full interview and a ten-page excerpt of the manga will appear in the new issue of EW, which is on sale tomorrow.

The Yen Press book is being created by Young Kim, who will be making her comics debut (?!) on what looks like it may be the biggest possible stage on which one can make one’s comics debut at the moment. The first printing will be 350,000 copies, it’s going to retail for $20 and it will go on sale March 16.

Brigid Alverson has the initial press release posted on her blog, as well as a few notes on what that 350,000 number actually means, compared to other manga and similar releases.

Given that Twilight long ago reached genuine phenomenon status, even before the film adaptations started rolling out, it’s no surprise that Yen Press is so confident in the property, and it’s probably safe to say they have every reason to be so confident.

Some thoughts on the project:

—I found the cover credits interesting. At the bottom of the cover it says “Stephenie Meyer” in bold, and in a much smaller font below that it reads “Art and Adaptation by Young Kim.” From what she told EW, Meyer didn’t actually script the graphic novel, and her contributions seemed to be supplying the source novel and then asking for changes and tweaking some dialogue. Obviously, hers is the bigger name and the one that’s going to be likely the one that moves books, but the credits don’t really seem to accurately reflect who did what (This isn’t at all unusual, of course, although it is perhaps unfortunate that Yen is adhering to the trend rather than breaking it).

—For some added context of that 350,000 number, check out John Jackson Miller’s analysis of the top-selling comics of the past decade. If Yen sells through that initial print, they will have outsold every single-issue comic book save the Obama/Spidey issue of Amazing Spider-Man. And keep in mind that the top ten books on Miller’s list are all priced at $2.99. Twilight will be over six times that price. If anyone still thinks that superhero comics constituted “mainstream” comics, that’s something to keep in mind.

—Simon Jones’ reaction is worth checking out just for the title of his post: “Yen prints 350,000 copies Twilight graphic novel, CCi attendees no longer allowed to complain.” Actually, Jones makes some quite salient points in his piece, including the fact that the book “will expose more fresh eyeballs to comics than any other single release, even series, in 2010” and that it offers a pretty perfect opportunity for retailers to get potential new customers in their stores. Personally, I hope a lot of ‘em are already planning their Twilight: The Graphic Novel release parties and working on their “If you like this, you’ll like these”-style displays.

—Expect a ton of press on this one, from mainstream media, comics media and Twilight fandom. The book is still two months out, and here’s what I found in my Google News feed since EW ran their preview piece: The BBC,The Guardian, The Independent, USA Today, MTV’s Splash Page, Anime News Network, OK! Magazine, Perez Hilton, Cinematical, The Hollywood Gossip, Twilight Lexicon, Zimbio.com and this person’s blog.

—I hate to judge a comic based on a single page, but man, that was not a very good single page of comics, was it? The character designs are very nice though.

—Much, much, much shorter comics adaptations of Twilight are already available online for free. The extremely talented Lucy Knisley adapted Twilight into four panels here (plus she handles each of the sequels in four panels, in addition to a killer strip about the experience of reading the Twilight saga), while Chris Sims managed it in a single panel while announcing this year’s 30-Second Recap Contest.

“While only two graphic novel publishers, Viz and Boom! Studios, had stand-alone booths, almost every major publisher featured graphic novels prominently in their display…”: Brigid Alverson attended an American Library Association show, and wandered around checking out the comics for kids offerings. Sons of Liberty, which Alverson says is set just before the American revolution and features “two runaway slaves with ninja-like powers” sounds interesting.

“After all, through their collective electronic whining and nagging, the fangirls have earned those very books”: Writing for Comics Waiting Room, Vincent S. Moore decries the lack of black super-characters in Big Two comics at the moment, and suggests that perhaps the recent attention given to comics featuring superheroines and/or created by women are coming at the expense of comics featuring black men.  I’m sure the same fangirls he mentions whining and nagging will fact check and fight back against his column in the days to come, so I won’t bother doing so here (The statement that “the number of books featuring lead characters of color is zero” is demonstrably untrue though). It is true that both Marvel and DC have a lot of great black super-characters that they could be putting to better use (Surely a Black Lightning or Steel monthly wouldn’t make any less sense than a Magog one, or an Icon/Static any less sense than a The Web/Hangman one, for example).

“This is a VERY GOOD Image comic about orcs and stealing and penises and conquest”: Jog recently reviewed some recent comics for The Savage Critics, including James Stokoe’s new Image series Orc Stain #1. It’s a dynamite review of a dynamite comic, and well worth a look if you haven’t sampled the book for yourself yet (or if, like me, you struggled to try and capture what you liked about it so much in writing, and felt you fell short).

This needs to stop: Among the April-shipping comics DC announced yesterday is an 80-page collection of Blackest Night background material that they’ve decided to entitle Blackest Night: Director’s Cut, despite the fact that there is no “director,” it’s not a different “cut” of the Blackest Night (in fact, it doesn’t even sound like it’s comics) and is therefore in no way even metaphorically comparable to the director’s cut of a film. Come on DC, just because Marvel does something stupid doesn’t mean you have to do it too! You’re far too old to succumb to peer pressure like this.

The business of selling content rather than Cracker Jack prizes: Last Thursday, Marvel editor Tom Brevoort defended his company’s crazy we’ll-take-returns-from-retailers-but-only-if-they’re-our-competitor’s-books-and-we’ll-pay-you-in-a-variant scheme on Twitter, noting that “we’re in the business of selling content rather than Cracker Jack prizes.” It was an odd statement given that Marvel’s plan was to respond to a perceived glut of comics purchased just to get Cracker Jack prizes by offering not content, but one more variant cover (Variant covers usually being, like the plastic Lantern rings, things retailers need to order a certain number of comics in order to get). Yesterday Marvel released their solicitations for their April books. Because that content vs. Cracker Jack statement was still rattling around my skull, I got out a pen and some paper and made some hash marks. Unless I miscounted (which is rather likely), Marvel is publishing 43 comics with at least one varaint cover of some kind in April. Twenty-one of those are “Iron Man by Design” variants. Siege #4 will have four different variants (for five covers total), and both Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 #1 and Invincible Iron Man #25 will have three variants, one of which will be a “Foilogram” variant. Hmm… Foilogram. Sounds like something you might find in a box of…well, you know where I’m going with this.