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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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.

Your FCBD reminder: This Saturday is the very best day of the entire year (Sorry, Christmas!), but circumstances beyond my control (stupid day job) will prevent me from visiting a comic shop for Free Comic Book Day goodies. Fantagraphics’ Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Top Shelf’s Top Shelf Kids Club (See Chris Eliopoulas “cover” characters created by James Kochalka, Andy Runton and others!),  Drawn and Quarterly’s John Stanley’s Summer Fun, Marvel’s Captain America/Thor (By the Mighty Avenger team of Robert Langridge and Chris Samnee) and Image’s Super Dinosaur Origin Special #1 are the book’s I’m most interested in and excited abou, so let me know how they are if you pick any of ‘em up. Also, drop some cash on a trade or something while you’re there scoring freebies; I think proper Free Comic Book Day etiquette demands it. If you’re only a casual comics reader, in which case I’m surprised you’re reading this at all, you can find your nearest participating shop here.

FCBD in USA Today: America’s most copiously colored newspaper has a short feature on Free Comic Book Day in today’s edition. Yesterday, they ran a feature story on DC’s upoming Flashpoint, and, to a lesser extent, comic book publishing event/crossovers in general.

“Who would you pick, Miller or Morrison, to ‘explore’ her past?”: DC Women Kicking Ass talks about Frank Miller and Grant Morrison’s interest in a Wonder Woman comic. I’d like to see both, actually (and I’m sure DC would as well, given the fact that those are two of the most marketable names among today’s creators). I’m sure both would be a blast, although I don’t know that either would do a good job of communicating the “real” Wonder Woman that Marston and Peter created. The best Wonder Woman comics of the past decade or so have been Adam Warren’s Empowered comics,  but it would probably be redundant for him to do another comic about bondage, feminism, male-female power struggles and relationships and superheroes at this point, even if a Wonder Woman comic would give him new characters and classic designs to play with.

“Well, every so often I need to be reminded that comics are supposed to be a fun part of my life”: The Supergirl-centric Supergirl Comic Box Commentary blog lookst at Tiny Titans #39, that would be the “pink” issue, an  ideal reminder of just how much fun comics can be.

Peter David thinks Thor is better than The Incredible Hulk, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Iron Man 2 and Punisher: War Zone: On his blog, David called it “easily the best Marvel movie since ‘Iron Man’,” although I don’t think that says a whole lot. Bloggers are starting to respond to thier own viewing experiences. The Comics Journal‘s  Dan Nadel didn’t like it, while Heidi “The Beat” MacDonald and Savage Critic Brian Hibbs had more mixed feelings. I plan on seeing it in a couple hours of here, and I imagine that as long as Natalie Portman gets enough screen time, I’ll be at least mildly entertained—the ability to stare at Natalie Portman for long periods of time even made the last few Star Wars movies endurable, after all.

This sounds like a funny premise…that’s about five years too late: Writer Chad Blakely has written a graphic novel entitled Kidnapping Kevin Smith, about two comic shop employees who kidnap the director/writer/actor/comics dabbler in an attempt to force him to write a screenplay about them. Really nice Mike Allred cover image though, and a good “get,” considering Allred’s history with Smith’s intersection with comics.

“A History of Storm in Comic Covers”: Doubles as a sad commentary on the deevolution of the importance of drawing skills and design on comic book covers over the years.

Like her 2010 Flesh and Bone, Julia Gfrörer’s latest comic features two passionate young lovers, some supernatural circumstances and a strange sex scene.  While the previous book was set in an undetermined past and mixed the lore of witchcraft with a Gothic melodrama, her new Too Dark To See has a modern milieu. That makes the setting more immediate, and the supernatural aspects a bit scarier.

The young couple is Lauren and Jamie, and we’re first introduced to them naked on their shared mattress on the floor of their apartment, in apparent post-coital bliss, the former telling the latter that “No one has ever loved anyone more than I love you.” As they sleep, a piece of shadow in the corner of their bedroom peels itself off the wall, takes the vague shape of a woman, and crawls into their bed, seducing Jamie.

The romantic sentiment Lauren expresses is soon undercut by scenes and dialogue suggesting problems in their relationship, ranging from minor annoyances (You never do the dishes, you always interrupt me) to more serious concerns (Are you cheating on me?), and essentially revealing a real world relationship fraught with real world pleasures and problems. That, or are the shadows that have their way with the lovers somehow impact their happiness, and is it just those two, or everyone?

Questions are raised, answers are to be provided by the reader.

Gfrörer’s artwork is a rare pleasure. Her round-cornered, ever-so-slightly wobbly panels repeat with a mechanical, filmic progression—despite varying in size and layout—and are full of white, white space. She has an extremely thin, delicate line, which probably artificially inflates the amount of white space that’s there, but her artwork is anything but minimalist or abstract. The figures are highly detailed, never more so then we see close-ups of their hands at work on extremely detailed objects, like Lauren before an espresso machine at work, or making a sandwich from lovingly cross-hatched strawberry jam.

The open space, filled in by the white of the paper the art’s drawn, sharply contrasts with the few scenes set outside of the couple’s apartment, which are darker and have more details, and the visits from the shadows, which are dark, slightly furious looking patches of less-precise lines, suggesting a sort of controlled scribble. They are also somewhat see-through, so they were apparently drawn with something other than the lines of the rest of the book.

The beautiful aesthetic of the art is mirrored in the production; this is a mini-comic Gfrörer made and is selling through Etsy, and looks and feels homemade, bound with string. In both the criteria of a comic as comic and a comic as object, it’s a beautiful thing.

If you’re interested in securing a copy, here’s Gfrörer Etsy listing for the book, and here’s her website.

“As there are any number of reviews out there that will tell you why you should avoid this book, I’ll provide a little contrast by illuminating what I liked”: Collected Editions actually finds a few things to like in  the Justice League: Rise and Fall collection, which includes The Fall of Green Arrow and the Prism-award winning Rise of Arsenal.

You know, I’ve been waiting to see these guys reappear in a new DC Comics ever since Batman Inc was first announced: “Green Arrows of the World Meet the Battling Bowman”

Reminder: Michael Dooney still draws pretty ladies very well.

The Mindless Ones‘ “Three Fools” Part 3: I linked to the first two parts of the series, so I might as well do the third as well, focusing on Grant Morrison’s version of The Joker that has appeared during his current run on the Bat-books and began, oddly enough, way back in Aztek.

New Teen Titans was apparently a great source of “Nobody’s Favorites” characters: Andrew Weiss tackles DC’s first dude named Azrael.

There seems to be some confusion regarding the definition of a “shirt”: Because if you take some time to explore Hot Chicks In Batman Shirts, you’ll find that  some of those shirts are clearly undergarments, and some of the girls aren’t even wearing shirts. It’s probably NSFW, I imagine (Via Tom Spurgeon, Your #1 Source For Photos of Attractive Women Wearing Superhero Merchandise!)

Speaking of Batman shirts…: Bully, the little stuffed bull-ogger, does some detective work that I think would make Batman proud, closely examining a Batman shirt purchased from Target. Also at Bully’s Comics Oughta Be Fun, he presents some less than masterful work from the comic book masters.

Is it gauche to linkblog back to your own blog?: Because I’m gonna do it. I have some suggestions for future issues of DC Comics Presents. How about you guys? Anything you’d like to see re-presented in DC’s $8, 100-ish page almost-trade format?

What’s due in comics shops this week? A whole bunch of stuff, on two days, not just one (Remember this Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, so plan on visiting your local comic shop a second time on Saturday). In the mean time, here are some of this Wednesday’s releases that looked good, bad or interesting to me this week…

Alexandro Jodorowsky’s Screaming Planet: The writer’s name is the one above the title of this $25, 125-page hardcover collection of Humanoids material, but plenty of American fans are likely going to be attracted to the all-star list of international artists involved, including J.H. Williams III, Jerome Opena, Adi Granov, Ladronn and plenty of others.

Avengers Academy Giant-Size #1: This Paul Tobin-written, Ed McGuinness and David Baldeon-drawn comic featuring the Avengers Academy characters and The Young Allies team-ing up against Arcade has already been solicited in a few different formats, but it finally sees rlease this week as a huge 80-page, $8 single issue. As with DC’s DC Comics Presents format, I think this is a pretty good way to sell certain comics in the era of $4/22-page book—it’s pricey, but given its page count and relative to a lot of what’ son the shelf, it’s a great value. (Also, I have a weakness for Arcade). It’s not the only Avengers Academy book out this week; Avengers Academy #13 features the heroes going to their prom in a story by Christos Gage, Bily Tan and Sean Chen. I haven’t read any of the series yet, but everyone who has seems to like it.

Bat Boy: The Complte Weekly World News Comic Strip by Peter Bagge: Just what the title says. This 100-page, $18 harcover collects Bagge’s newspaper-style gag strip featuring one of the late, great supermarket tabloid’s most famous cover boys.

Cyclops Vol. 1: This $20, 115-page hardcover collects the first two instalmments of the futuristic sci-fi action story from the The Killer team of Luc Jacamon and Matz. I’m not a fan of the genre and didn’t really transcend that genre, so it wasn’t really my cup of tea, although you may like different tea than me. The art and production were certainly sensational, and our own David Pepose gave it rather high marks on the main page’s Best Shots review feature.
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How will this affect Frank Miller’s Holy Terror graphic novel?: I don’t know. Or care that much. But I feel weird linking to any comics-related “news” this morning and not at least mentioning the thing most folks are going to be talking about/thinking about. It’s a slow news day today, other than, you know, that news.

So long, Sluggo Saturdays: At his Progressive Ruin blog, Mike Sterling talks at length about his two year-long Sluggo Saturdays feature, pointing out some of his favorites and the awesome panel that first drew his interest to Sluggo in the first place.

“One of the best by one of the best”: The Moment of Moore tumble-thingee spotlights a 1998 drawing of Alan Moore by Gilbert Hernandez. I love the fact that as great a comic writer as Moore is, he’s also a great comics character. (Via Flog)

Everybody interview Chester Brown: Here are two new mainstream media pieces on the Paying For It cartoonist, from The National Post and The Star.

Truth, Justice and the Death To America Way: Guys, I honestly cannot tell you how glad I am that Graeme has been blogging about Superman renouncing his citizenship or whatever in Action Comics #900 (here and here). When I first heard the news, I gasped “Oh no!” Not because I particularly care about imaginary character Superman’s imaginary citizenship—dude’s not even “real” within the fictive DC Universe, where Clark Kent and Kal-El are his “real” identities, and spent about a year exiled from Earth on New Krypton at the request of planet Earth—but because the last thing I wanted to do was sift through mainstream media coverage of another ginned-up comic book “controversy” like Batman hanging out with a Muslim or Captain America comic book featuring signs taken from a real world protest of a black man being president. Heidi MacDonald of The Beat has a stronger stomach than I, and is paying attention to the mainstream reaction, so check her out for more. I think Mike Sterling  sums it up pretty well in this post at his Progressive Ruin blog (you’ll have to scroll past the really important news of the day, regarding Swamp Thing action figures), noting that the subplot is “causing people who’ve never read Superman comics to threaten to never read Superman comics.” Political satire blog Wonkette has a similar take about the importance of threats to “boycott” Superman, expressed in their own particular style and vitriolic viewpoint:

So here’s mythical metrosexual King of America and lamestream media reporter Clark “Superman” Kent pledging to join the U.N. or something. Teabaggers will be very upset! Even though the only comics they read are “Mallard Filmore” and those emailed pictures of the Obama Chimp Family picking watermelons outside the White House.

Will that stop teabaggers and Palin slobs from “boycotting” something they don’t read and would never purchase. Of course not, c’mon, are you new around here?

Hard to argue with the conclusion of their post either, of which I’ve taken out a swear because we try not to use those particular swears here: “You know what’s going to be…awesome? Never looking at the Internet again.” Oh, if only it were that easy…

Steven Weissman draws Harry Potter: Check it out here.

Oh, maybe that’s why his Batman comics have been coming out late: Grant Morrison has a lot going on these days, like his prose book Supergods. DC’s Source blog has a first look at the cover.

R. Sikoryak’s Jerry Robinson’s Joker (And Jerry Robinson, too): The artist has a nice illustration of Robinson and Robinson’s most famous creation in The New Yorker, accompanying an article on Jerry Robinson. You can see it here. And, of course, in The New Yorker.

Oops, I’m not done with politics just yet after all: What’s the difference between depicting a white president with big ears as a chimpanzee and a black president with big ears as a chimpanzee? Alan Gardner of The Daily Cartoonist links to an NPR piece on potentially offensive political cartooning, in which Tell Me More host Michel Martin interviews American Political Cartoons author Stephen Hess and political cartoonist Mike Luckovich. I’m linking to Gardner’s post instead of just straight to NPR, as Gardner provides a bit of background. Do give the interview a listen, or read the transcript here. Luckovich is a hell of a cartoonist, and there’s some interesting stuff in there about political cartooning in general and a bit about his thought process, and Hess has some funny stories, like one about a 1902 conflict between a cartoonist and a governor.

If you merely heard about it, then you’d probably be forgiven for wondering if Matt Howarth’s The Downsized was in fact done by that Matt Howarth.

A middle-aged writer who left town to pursue his dreams in LA returns to Michigan, older, fatter, balder and still not the success he planned to be by this point, on the occasion of his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. There he meets up with his siblings, friends, cousins and former girlfriend. In the course of four long scenes spread across 80 pages and set almost entirely in hotel rooms, we get to know this cast of characters and their conflicts.

In other words, it’s real-world drama told almost exclusively through conversations, as if the reader were in the room and overhearing the action, almost like a stage-play. It’s about growing up, and, in a more vague way, how the current society and economy frustrates doing so, and how maturity is mostly relative anyway.

And yes, it’s by that Matt Howarth, the cartoonist best known for his 1980’s and early ‘90s Bugtown, Those Annoying Post Brothers and Savage Henry comics (the latter about a guitarist from an alternate reality), the cartoonist who did some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, a DC/Helix miniseries about a romance between a space alien and a sentient asteroid and high sci-fi comics featuring Keif Llama.

The Downsized might therefore not sound like something from Howarth, but there’s no mistaking the work of the creator by sight.
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More Toth imminent: Yesterday I mentioned the release of Genius, Isolated, the first part of a biography of Alex Toth by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell. Well, there’s another handsome-looking volume coming on the subject of Toth set for summer release, Setting The Standard: Comics By Alex Toth 1952-1954, edited by Greg Sadowski. Fantagraphics shows off the cover here.

Please give Ross Campbell a call, IDW!: I know I discussed artist Ross Campbell’s sketches and in-depth thoughts about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on my personal blog already, but I’m not sure if I have here or not yet. Well, I’m going to do so today, because Campbell’s still posting sketches and thoughts, including a story he apparently started for Mirage starring Shadow, Casey Jones’ now-teenaged daughter. If you’ve any affecton for those characters, I’d highly reccomend you spend some time with Campbell looking at his art. And if you happen to have the license to publish new ninja turtle comics—IDW—I’d highly reccomend you hire the hell out of Ross Campbell. He’s the ideal artist for 21st century ninja turtle comics.

Rick Veitch draws Dr. Strange: Here.

“The Adventures of Alfred”: Those Fabulous Fifties shares some comics featuring everyone’s favorite comic book butler, in some extraordinary extra-buttling adventures.

Mark Millar tells the truth: The Mindless Ones on Kapow!

I like the name Sugar Ninjas: If you like the concept, and are a female artist, they’d like your submissions.

Everyone should always be doing this: Zak from Playing D&D With Porn Stars draws his way through the Fiend Folio.

When Dr. Voodoo was a white guy: Found in the The Comic Book Catacombs, a previous Dr. Voodoo who wasn’t Brother Voodoo promoted to Sorcerer Supreme.

Is Scott Adams maybe moving into performance art?: That would certainly explain the Dilbert cartoonist’s activities of late. Here’s the latest “Say, that’s a strange place for Scott Adams’ name to appear” story.

I feel somewhat conflicted by Blog@’s image-importing ability being felled by e-goblins for weeks now (For the record, we can still put up images, but not in a way that would do any favors for my already questionable drawings; controlling the sizes is a dicey proposition). On the one hand, I like having cartoons at the top of these columns to differentiate them from all the other columns about new releases each week and because it spared me writing any kind of introduction and because it gave me a legitimate reason to Google Image search, say, Godzilla or Jack Kirby Thor drawings for an hour and then scribble on index cards for an afternoon.

On the other hand, just writing a column and not illustrating it as well is so goddam easy, and it leaves me with plenty of free time to pursue my hobbies—like Google Image searching Godzilla and Jack Kirby Thor drawings and then scribbling away an afternoon.

Anyway! Here are some things that you should be able to find at your comic shop this week, things that look like they might be good, or might be bad or that I might just want to talk about…

Action Comics #900: To celebrate the 900th issue of the longest-running serial comic book, DC comics has called in…a bunch of dudes from outside of comics? Okay, I’m just being a jerk—television and prose writer Paul Cornell, director Richard Donner, TV producer Damon Lindelof and screenwriter David Goyer all have comics work on their resumes, ranging from Donner’s co-scripting of a few Superman arcs with Geoff Johns and  Lindelof’s single miniseries Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk to Cornell’s current run on Action and Goyer’s run on JSA.

They’re all among the many creators contributing to this $6, just shy of 100-pages anniverarys issue. The main event is Cornell and artist Pete Woods’ conclusion to their Lex Luthor-starring story arc that’s been running through the book while Superman’s been…unavailable, a story also containing art by Dan Jurgens, Rags Morales, Ardian Syaf, Jamal Igle and Gary Frank. The book will also feature work from Ryan Sook, Miguel Sepulveda, RB Silva, Geoff Johns, Paul Dini and Brian Stelfreeze. Regardless of the source, that’s a lot of talent for a single purchase.

DC breaks down who’s doing what here and shows off a few pages here.

Brightest Day #24: It’s a big week for big DC books. This double-sized, $5 issue is the conclusion of the biweekly, year-long series that spun out of Blackest Night. As someone who read the first 23 issues with interest, I’m hoping we get a satisfying conclusion, but the existence of a miniseries titled Brightest Day Aftermath and concerning itself with a major plot point not introduced until the twenty-third issue doesn’t give me a lot of hope. The publisher’s other biweekly, year-long series Justice League: Generation Lost, which shipped on the weeks Brightest Day didn’t, also sees release this week (wait, how did that happen?), in another 48-page, $5 special.

Bulletproof Coffin: I haven’t heard a single bad thing about David Hine and Shaky Kane’s miniseries from anyone who’s read it and talked about it yet, so I’m assuming it’s pretty good. Trade-waiters like myself can find out this week, when the $18, 200-page collection arrives in comics shops.

Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth: Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell’s eagerly-awaited image-filled, $50, 330-page hardcover biography of the highly influential and greatly admired artist will focus on Toth’s life through the early 1960s, while a second volume will pick up from there. This is no dobut going to be at the top of a lot of comics fans’ shopping lists this week.
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“Robin in the Rye”: Andrew Lorenei has Robin perform scenes from J.D. Salinger’s most-read novel. Nice Penguin cameo. Check out Lorenei’s archives while you’re there; lots of good stuff. (Via Comics Cavern)

“So you tell me… is the following image OK for a 12-year-old?”: At Eye on Comics, Don MacPherson notes a weird panel from a recent issue of Thunderbolts, and points out that Marvel rated the comics okay for ages 12 and over. It often seems to me that folks at DC and Marvel spent a lot of time coming up with their ratings systems, appy them to some books once, and then never, ever thnk about them again.

Lois Lanes are fun to draw: So says super cartoonists Kate Beaton at the bottom of this series of Lois vs. Superman strips. I don’t know about drawing them, but Lois Lanes are certainly fun to look at, at least when Beaton’s drawing them. I hope someone at DC is already on the phone trying ot get a hole of Beaton to offer her a sack of money to do a Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane revival special.

“We’ve been well received. We’re told there’s nothing quite like it in the city”: That’s Drawn & Quarterly publisher Chris Oliveros in this Montreal Gazette feature on the D+Q  brick-and-mortar bookstore.

“I never would have imagined that the American popularity of anime would have given birth to such an involved, complex and constructive culture”: I really enjoyed this column on Sakura-Con by Timothy Siegel of Forbes. It’s kind of charming in its outsider speaking to an audience of outsiders tone, but ir really sounds like Siegel went from knowing nothing about any of this goldanged anime stuff to being completely won over by it. I wonder if he’ll be cosplaying at the next Sakura-Con?

Please enjoy some Easter leftovers: Yet Another Comics Blog shares a Walt Kelly-drawn Easter cover, Polite Dissent continues its Peeps cosplaying super-teams tradition, Sunday Comics Debt looks at an older B.C. Easter tradition (Wait, if the comic is literally set Before Christ, then how can they acknowledge a holiday founded on the death of Christ…?), Todd Klein tells us about his easter egg coloring, Ty Templeton presents some rabbit-on-rabbit violence and shares a picture of Superman hanging out with a Joker-creepy Easter bunny, Law and the Multiverse examines a few legal issues regarding the Easter rabbit and Daryl Cagle rounds up some Easter-themed political cartoons.

So basically Thing doesn’t need to wear his XXXL raincoat and Carmen Sandiego hat get-up anymore, right?: I enjoyed this really smart piece by Colin Smith about how Ben Grimm’s transformation into The Thing and the tragic nature of his appearance as originally conceived no longer means the same thing that it once did, in the Marvel Universe or our universe. (Via Comics Reporter)

“It’s all fiction. None of this happened”: That’s Gary Groth vs. Jim Shooter’s recent blog posts on one of the more important/touchy issues in the last few decades of the American comic book industry—Marvel vs. Jack Kirby over Jack Kirby’s art. It’s a great read. Plus, I learned two new words while reading it.

Okay, Swamp Thing can return to the DC Universe: But Josh Bayer gets to do the covers. Deal?

The tradition of casting black folks in viking movies: Writing for Salon, Bob Calhoun examines the tempest in a teapot that was casting Idris Elba as a pseudo-Norse space-god in the upcoming Thor movie, and notes its hardly the first time a black guy has appeared in a viking movie.

Someday someone will mount a full production (I hope): This sounds kind of neat. Apparently a theater company that does Shakespeare is performing a reading of Anthony del Col and Conor McCreery’s Secret Wars-starring-Shakespeare’s characters comic Kill Shakespeare. That’s obviously a comic with a lot of dramatic potential, and I figure it’s only a matter of time before it gets full-on adapted. I wonder if it will make it to the stage or to the silver screen first though…?

The title of Daniel Clowes’ latest book refers to Marshall, a 38-year-old, balding divorce attempting to stave off his loneliness by going on a blind date his last remaining friend arranged for him.

It’s partly ironic, as Marshall himself notes he’s not exactly a great catch, although as the story progresses he gets the opportunity to act like—or at least attempt to act like—a knight in shining armor a few times

The title could just as easily refer to Clowes himself though. As should come as no surprise at this point in the cartoonist’s career, the book is wonderful.

Originally created for The New York Times Magazine, where it ran serially, the expanded and modified Mister Wonderful shares the horizontal, comic strip-novel appearance of the earlier Pantheon-published Ice Haven, although Mister Wonderful is much more straightforward and focused on a single character with a single story.

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Is there a font called “Spirit Title” yet?: Imprint magazine has a downright astonishing article on Will Eisner’s usage of three-dimensional looking, “stone type” in his Spirit features, and some of the comics covers his signature technique inspired over the years (Via The Source). Comics Alliance has a similarly-themed post, which includes a swell Gotham Adventures cover.

Oh yeah, Wizard was good for something: Bully posts Ben Grimm’s Passover adventure from Twisted Toyfare Theater.

“Surprise Penis!”: Ty Templeton carefully defines and explains Surprise Penis, and counts down the top-ten best examples from toys, cartoons and comics. Probably NSFW.

Because you worry about really weird things…?: “Why Wonder Woman’s Costume Really Worries Me”

He’s not writing Detective Comics for nothing: Scott Snyder unravels an extremely pervasive mystery plaguing superhero comics, and takes to Twitter to reveal it; iFanboy captured the results.

Bad news for fans of lame jokes and lamer colored pencil-on-index card art fans. I haven’t been able to connect to the place on the Internet where my computer sends scanned images into Blog@, either because something’s wrong with my computer, or something’s wrong with Blog@, or my computer and Blog@ are fighting, so this week’s installment is nothing but words, words and more words.  On the plus side, there’s a lot more words devoted to more books.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Astro City: Shining Stars: Here’s the latest chunk of Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson’s superhero comics, including miniseries Astra, Silver Agent and one-shot Beautie. It’s a $25, 210-page hardcover.

Dark Horse Presents #1: After a stint online, the venerable Dark Horse anthology returns to print, now in the form of an $8, 80-page, full-color, ad-free, bound format. This first issue will include work from (deep breath) Frank Miller, Harlan Ellison, Howard Chaykin, Neal Adams, Richard Corben, Carla Speed McNeil, Michael T. Gilbert, Paul Chadwick, Randy Stradley, David Chelsea and others. In other words, not something you wouldn’t want to take a look at. Preview here.

DC Comics Presents: Ninja Boy #1: DC’s line of $8, almost-trades saves another property from the back-issue bins. This was a one-time WildStorm property, written and drawn by Ale Garza, with co-writer Allen Warner and co-artist Dan Norton. The 2001, six-issue miniseries was remarkably manga-inspired,not simply in the accents of Garza’s art-work, but in the premise and characters as well. That premise? Cheeky ninja kid has action-comedy adventures. I remember trying and not really liking the book much, but it’s certainly interesting in it’s attempt to process familiar elements from Japanese pop culture into something American, regardless of how successful it was. This book will include the first four issues. For a more traditional offering from DC in the same format, this week also sees the release of DC Comics Presents: Legion of Super Heroes—Legion of the Damned.That was a millennial storyline by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who have since gone on to become fairly synonymous with space-faring superhero adventures, and Olivier Coipel. The solicitation on dccomics.com is rather forthcoming about why this one’s being published like this now: “With the hardcover collection of LEGION LOST coming in June, DC Comics collects the tale that led into that space-spanning epic”

Dungeons & Dragons Classics Vol. 1: I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on Blog@ before, although I know I’ve discussed it repeatedly on my own blog, Every Day Is Like Wednesday, but the old DC/TSR Advanced Dungons & Dragons comic book was the one that got me into comics, setting me on a slippery slope that—greased with Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Neil Gaiman and company’s Sandman and a few Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle Bat-comics— led me to become the well-adjusted, comic book-obsessed, destitute blogger and mini-comic maker I am today. IDW has repackaged and republished it, along with the previously released DC/TSR Forgotten Realms. This first volume of AD&D comics will collect the first eight issues of the series, all drawn by Jan Duursema (she drew every issue of the series, save two fill-ins from Tom Mandrake), and written by first Michael Fleisher and then Dan Mishkin. Fleisher’s arc, comprising the first four issues, is rather unremarkably straightforward, but starting with Mishkin’s first arc, the book improves greatly, moving away from strict adherence to sword and sorcery business into something a bit more interesting. The second half of this book, for example, is the story “The Spirit of Myrrth,” in which our heroes are hired by the ghost of a dead jester to secure a powerful magical joke scroll before the city’s Jester’s Guild gets it and creates a giant jester skeleton to—well, it’s pleasingly strange, is what I’m trying to say.  The trade is a $20, 200-page trade paperback.  For IDW’s original exploitation of the D&D license, you can check out the publisher’s Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Sun #4 and Dungeons and Dragons #6, also on sale this week. Those are both $4 books.

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Hey, remember that time Rob Liefeld and Mike Mignola collaborated?: No? Well, Liefeld does, and he has some neat images to share too. Now I kinda want to see Liefeld draw Hellboy and the BPRD gang…at least on a cover or pin-up, anyway.

Something I will never get sick of seeing: Jaime Hernandez drawing Wonder Woman. Why oh why did DC ever cancel Solo, their greatest idea for a comic book series ever? Can you imagine a Jaime Hernandez issue of Solo?

Is Johnny Ryan a better concert poster designer, or a better concert line-up assembler?: You decide! (Link not safe for work, obviously…or is saying that after already saying “Johnny Ryan” considered redundant?

Big Questions will be a big book: In fact, I think I’m going to have to ask a carpenter to come over and add a few feet on to my Drawn and Quarterly bookshelf, and maybe reinforce it. As the first of these pictures shows, the book will be even bigger than some of D+Q’s awfully big books.

James Kochalka is a very good dancer: Check out his moves in this Beyonce video (For his song entitled Beyonce, that is; he’s not a back-up dancer in an actually Beyonce video, although I would kinda like to see him performing in something like this). In other Kochalkappenings, this American Elf strip is a nice demonstration of how adulthood is pretty much the same as high school, only interminable.

Abhay Khosla is pretty much the best: The latest evidence.

“I remember them from drawing them so intently as a child that my hand remembered drawing them more than I remembered them”: That’s Vicki Scott, from  a neat little video interview thing she and Bob Scott, the artists involved with that new Peanuts comic I reviewed the other day. Returning to characters you used to draw as a kid every once in a while is a really cool, really strange experience. Every few years or so I’ll sit down and spend a few hours just drawing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Uncle Scrooge or Batman villain The Scarecrow over and over.

“Yeah, new guys, I can do that like breathing. I can piss new guys out like a race horse with Charlton rates”: That’s Evan Dorkin imagining the thoughts running through Jack Kirby’s head when he sat down to make Captain America Annual #4, which featured Magneto hanging out with a pretty lame-o Brotherhood of Evil, which included guys like The Peeper and The Lifter. Well, when you create some 5,000 characters in the space of 40 years or so, they can’t all be Doctor Doom, you know?

Get ‘em George Takei!: Add the Star Trek actor to the list of people who think moving the setting of Akira to the U.S. (and thus casting non-Japanese actors) for a live-action film adaptation is a pretty dumb idea. While I admit being attracted to the sheer insanity of casting twenty-something white guy Robert Pattinson and 30-year-old white guy Justin Timberlake as Japanese teenagers Tetsuo and Kaneda, if they don’t land Pattinson while he’s still  a chick-money magnet, I can’t imagine this going over well at the box office or in film reviews. How did the “whitewashed” and/or Americanized live-action big-screen adapations of Godzilla, Dragon Ball and The Last Airbender go over, in terms of both money and popular esteem?

This looks awesome: Fantagraphics’ Flog blog shares a nice illustration piece by Tony Millionaire, for a book that sounds almost as awesome as the Millionaire piece looks.

Brian Hibbs on recent events: I enjoy reading Savage Critics ringleader Brian Hibbs’ posts on new comics, like this one on recent events like Fear Itself and “The Death of Spider-Man,” because he responds to the works not just as a fan (I liked this, I didn’t like that) or a critic (this was good, this was bad, here’s why) but also as a retailer. After all, he’s the guy who has to try and sell this stuff to his customers.

“Anyway, this was the most fun I’ve had in years and I’m really grateful for the response to it so far”: Artist Kevin Nowlan discusses his work on Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish, a one-shot released this past Wednesday.

Doubleshot of Sims: Comics Alliance’s Chris Sims discusses “The Best, Worst and Weirdest Alternate Superhero Deaths In Comics” in light of Ultimate Spider-Man’s ultimate death, and joins forces with one of my personal favorite artists for a comic book that never happened, Fear Itself: 1942.

“Maddening ouroboros of self-reference” is actually  a pretty good way to describe it: The Seattle Times reviews two recent episodes of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon. Part of that entails just counting off the crazy amount of allusions to what sounds like the entire history of Superman and Batman comics. I should note that critic Andrew A. Smith means “maddening ouroboros of self-reference” in a good way.

Charles Schulz’s Peanuts has long been available in book-length collections, the slim, often topical paperbacks a staple of children’s departments at libraries and old book stores.

Such collections pre-dated the normalization of the term “graphic novel,” though—the technical definition of which could be argued at great length, but the current popular definition of which within the publishing industry is simply comics bound with a spine—which allows Boom Studios to proclaim Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown the first Peanuts graphic novel.

One could argue whether or not that is the case, I suppose, but not without first arguing about the semantics of the term, so let’s skip all that. This is definitely the first Peanuts-branded comics packaged and sold as a graphic novel, as opposed to a collection, its the first that reads like a graphic novel and, more noteworthy to fans of the characters and their creator, it’s also the first new Peanuts comics material produced since the death of Schulz.

“New” probably needs some qualification, though. The 85-page book is an adaptation of the recently-produced animated special of the same name, and that was based on Schulz’s strips. The result then is a pretty perfect balance between providing new Peanuts material without resorting to someone other than the late Schulz doing it—No, he didn’t draw these lines, but these are still his gags and his story. The book, like the special, is therefore more of a respectful cover song than a whole new band exploiting the name of another one.

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Hi gang. I usually try to have my Wednesday, Monday and Friday linkblogging up by around 10:30 in the morning at the latest, but technical difficulties left me unable to access the site until right about now-ish, so this is about 12 hours late. Just in case you were wondering why this is showing up now, and why it’s shorter and lamer than usual.

Aaaugh!: His toes! You can see his toes! Dear God in heaven, why can I see his toes?!

Kapow aftermath: British comics focused site Down The Tubes has a very thorough post covering the Mark Millar-founded, London-based convention, including a ton of links to other pieces and reactions to the event. If you were curious about it, I can’t think of a better starting point to reading about it, really.

The monumental cartoonists of Canada: Bryan Munn of Sequential acts as tour guide to the many landmarks and monuments devoted to cartoonists that dot the Canadian landscape.

This made me laugh: The literal-minded among you please note that the sign is, of course, sarcastic, and you should not—I repeat not—try Amazon. Your package probably won’t even get through the post office, and I’m pretty sure you’ll get in some pretty serious trouble.

“On the whole, I actually found this one chapter to be interesting and fun to read”: Having been burned by these types of comics before, Nina Stone hesitantly attempts to read Fear Itself #1, and likes most of what comes after the ugly, ugly cover. I concur that her idea of a transfeminating Red Skull is a lot cooler than the Red Skull’s daughter trying to out-Red Skull him.