Okay, I don’t know if it’s actually that heavy or not, but the new Thor By Walter Simonson Omnibus is a big one: It’s 7.8-inches by 11.2-inches, and just under 1200 pages long. For your $125 bucks, you get about 50 issues of Simonson’s Thor, widely regarded as the high point of the title and the character.

Captain America: Fighting Avenger #1: Marvel’s planned all-ages, Marvel Adventures-style series is now a over-sized, 48-page one-shot. Brian Clevinger is a pretty great comic book writer and Gurihiru is a really great comics art team, so why complain about portion size?

The Complete Wendel: Cartoonist Howard Cruse is best known for his 1995 graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby, which was reprinted by Vertigo last year, but he also produced a comic strip about a young gay man and for The Advocate through much of the 1980s. As the title indicates, this $25, 290-page trade collects the entire run of the comic.

Flash #10: Writer Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul introduce Hot Pursuit and his Cosmic Motorcycle in an issue leading into the upcoming Flashpoint event/story. I guess this book’s running a bit late, given that the cover is of the title-character-posing-before-his-icon-on-a-white-field variety, which the whole DCU line sported back in…January, was it?

G.I. Joe: Cobra Commander Tribute 100-Page Spectacular: This gigantic, $8 special reprints the recent G.I. Joe: Cobra #12, along with reflections and reactions from various characters and reprints of of past Cobra Commander comics. (Exssselent, as the late, great head snake might have said). If you like the sounds of that spectacular Spectacular format, publisher IDW also has an Angel 100-Page Spectacular scheduled, reprinting some of their best Angel comics before the character joins former flame Buffy at Dark Horse Comics.

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A couple of publishers on their Eisner nominations: Drawn and Quarterly’s Peggy Burns admits to feeling very appreciated over the publisher’s 11 nominations, which almost half as many nominations as books they publish in a given years. Mathematically that’s…well, I can’t do math. Still, I bet if you subtracted the number of nominated works from the complete number of books D+Q published last year, and added up the nominations in comparison to that number, it would be pretty impressive book-to-nomination ratio. Meanwhile, DC announced their many nominations in a post entitled “DC receives 14 Eisner Nominations, The Most of Any Publisher.” Is it worth noting that of those 14, ten are for Vertigo 0r Vertigo-like (Joe Kubert’s Best/Writer Artist nom for Dong Xaoi, Vietnam 1965) books and two more are for projects far outside what one might consider DC Universe continuity comics (Tiny Titans and Wednesday Comics, for Best Publication For Kids and Best Graphic Album Reprint, respectively), leaving only two “true” DCU books nominated—Superboy for Best New Series and a Billy Tucci short from DCU Halloween Special 2010 for Best Short Story. I’m not trying to diminish the publisher’s accomplishments—one of its great strengths is the way it publishes a wide variety of work for a wide variety of audeinces within the structure of mainstream comics publishing—but I think its worth noting where what the Eisner judges consider “the good stuff” is coming from at the moment, I think.

Speaking of math and comics: Check out this heady, intersting analysis post entitled  “Mathematical Equivalence of Comics.” I wish I had to take a class on that in high school—I’m certain it would have come in more handy more often in my adult life than either algebra or trigonometry ever did. (Via Comics Reporter)

Black Widow’s weapons of choice—sexist?: Here’s an interesting discussion of Marvel’s super-spy’s versatile bracelet/gauntlet thingee. Please note that the name of the blog is NSFW.

So who’s drawing what from when?: DC announced the titles, logo designs and writers of their Retroactive books at WonderCon recently, and now The Source blog is going to start rolling out the names of the artists. First up? Eduardo Barretto on the ’70s era Superman one-shot. (Nice.) Keep your eyes on The Source for more reveals. This initiative provides plenty of opportunities for the cynical among us to make cracks at DC, but it also provides a lot of opportunities to see great work from great creators, many of whom we don’t see appearing on the new comics shelves as often as they should. Meanwhile, Don MacPherson of Eye On Comics offers his thoughts on the project, and offers some guesses as to who some of the artists might be. He mentions the timing of the event might make some of the creators more attractive folks to send to this season’s many conventions, and bigger draws once they’re there. I hope it gets some of these guys bigger readerships and perhaps more work—I certainly wouldn’t object to seeing a Barretto-drawn Superman or a Norm Breyfogle-drawn Batman showing up as often as, say, an Eddy Barrows-drawn Superman or Tony Daniel- or David Finch-drawn Batman.

The reviews themselves: Is it a sign of event fatigue that I didn’t find more Fear Itself #1 reviews among the comics blogosphere during my last two trips through it, Thursday and Sunday nights? Here’s a few sentences on it from Tim O’Neil (“Not terrible”), a review that takes an interesting tangent into relevance in comics and how this one features a scene that chooses to “go half-assed and bring the real world in, only to shy away from actually saying anything about it?”  by Yan Basque (“[B]y the time I’d reach the last page, I was itching to find out what happens next”) and a more formal review by the previously mentioned Don MacPherson (“The saving grace of this book is the artwork”). I think O’Neil wins the blurb-off here…who wouldn’t at least be tempted to buy a big, fat hardcover collection with the words “Not terrible” quoted on the cover?

This week’s discussion topic: This week’s Village Voice is the special “Comics Issue,” and features a great cover by Ward Sutton, depicting comics characters in the styles of different catoonists (Jack Kirby’s Charlie Brown! R. Crumb’s Olive Oyl! Et cetera!). The most talked about/blogged about issue raised by the issue? That of paying and not paying cartoonists. Here’s the Voice article “If Cartoons Are So Big, Why Don’t They Pay?”, and here’s a little round-up of some of the many reactions to the piece and its existence in the Voice.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if Marvel tried its hand at that format again? Well, guess what? It did, and quite recently”: Don MacPherson discusses Marvel’s recent flirtation with the magazine format. Have you heard of them?

Peanuts by Eric Reynolds, age 8 or 9: On the Flog blog, Fantagraphics’ Reynolds shares some childhood comics he did as a kid.

Noooo!: Why can’t you just leave poor Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana alone, Titans?

I like high concepts as much as the next guy, even if the next guy is a rabid otaku, and, let’s face it, when it comes to high-concept comics, Japan’s are higher and more numerous than anywhere else on earth.

But Yu Aikawa’s Butterfly features a really complicated one, which takes a majority of the first, 200-page volume to simply lay out.

High schooler Ginji Ishikawa hates the supernatural and angrily dismisses all aspects of it—from belief in ghosts and curses to horror scope reading. He also dismisses anyone who believes in it. This is kind of odd, since every single night Ginji is visited by the ghost of his dead brother, whom he shouts away with I can’t see yous and There’s no such thing as ghosts.

Ginji’s friend is constantly trying to set him up on dates with girls, although they usually end disastrously because of his ant-occult stance. On one double-date, they visit an amusement park, and when he’s reluctantly pulled into a haunted house, Ginji punches out an actor dressed as a ghost. He manages to avoid legal trouble, but only by committing to paying off the injured actor and park.

An opportunity to make the necessary money presents itself when a mysterious little girl approaches Ginji with a proposition: “Let’s go and kill all the ghosts in the world together!”
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“‘Just look at it,’ quoth the Helfer”: In light of the recent announcement of DC’s Retro-Active comics, in which J.M. DeMatteis will be re-teaming with Keith Giffen and Kevin Maguire for the ’90s Justice League issue, the writer shares an old essay about how he got involved with the franchise. It’s a fun piece with some fun behind the scenes details, and a good argument for the value of a talented, engaged editor working closely with creators on a title.

“Miller and Varley’s Joker”: The Mindless Ones series “Three Fools” continues with a look at The Joker in Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s The Dark Knight Returns. It’s a particularly intersting piece following the first part, which covered The Killing Joke, since Dark Knight isn’t particularly known for its Joker.

“Once upon a time the mouse named Batman…”: James Kochalka tells the best bedtime stories.

“I know I’m supposed to get all excited about the Thor movie, and the Green Lantern movie, and the Herbie the Fat Fury movie, like everyone says I’m supposed to…”: What live action superhero is Ty Templeton most excited about these days? Click to find out! I must confess, that particular hero translates remarkably well to that particular venue, which generally doesn’t do live action superheroes all that well.

It’s new to me, too: Check out this iFanboy post, in which a 2004 Frank Quitely image featuring the Masters of the Universe characters gets dug out and shown off.

The biggest direct market release of the week should be Fear Itself #1, the official kick off of Marvel’s latest line-engulfing crossover story. Unlike the majority of the previous big Marvel crossovers, this one won’t be written by Brian Michael Bendis, but instead by Matt Fraction, with Stuart Immonen providing the pencils and covers (Well, some of the covers, anyway; there should be several for each issue of this). As far as I can make out, the premise seems to have something to do with a pre-Asgardian force referred to as The Serpent giving various Marvel characters giant Thor-like sledgehammers and glowy redesigns, and also making other heroes face their worst fears or something.

At the very least, I imagine the prevalence of hammers in the series will guarantee a great deal more hitting and smashing than either Siege or Secret Invasion managed to muster. It’s a $4, 56-page book.

Aaron and Ahmed: Prose novelist Jay Cantor and Bronx Kill artist James Romberger team for an original graphic novel exploring the question, “What causes terrorism?” It’s a $25, 145-page hardcover from Vertigo’s crime imprint.

Blue Estate #1: This high-concept crime comedy comic sounds like it could be either awesome or terrible—“an alcoholic hit man and a desperate starlet dodge Russian mobsters, Italian gangsters, ninjas, hippies and the LAPD in a scheme to steal millions from a psychotic action movie hero”— but considering some of the artists involved, I’m leaning toward awesome. Screenwriter and artist Viktor Kalvachev write, while Nathan Fox, Toby Cypress, Kalvachev himself and others draw. You can see a preview here.

Blue Exorcist Vol. 1: This new manga series from Viz is about young  Rin Okumura, an orphan boy raised by an exorcist who discovers his real dad is Satan himself. With a background like that, naturally he decides to go to exorcism school. It’s from creator Kato Kazue, and the first volume is 200-pages for $10

BPRD: The Dead Remembered #1: The latest offering from the Mignola-verse is a three-issue miniseries flashing back to a teenage Liz Sherman joining Professor Broom on an investigation in New England. Scott Allie and Mike Mignola write, while Karl Moline and Andy Owens provide the art. You can see a preview here.
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I just read a review copy of Chester Brown’s upcoming Paying For It, and am still processing it and am thus still a long way from writing an actual review of it yet (it doesn’t come out until May). But one of my favorite aspects of the book were the scenes in which Brown’s comics versions of real-life friends and cartoonists Seth, Joe Matt and himself would hang out and talk about the subject of the book (Brown’s “whoremongering,” as Matt calls it, and their various theories on romantic love/human relationships). Here Matt, whom you may recognize as the author of Spent (in which Brown and Seth also appeared as supporting characters), reviews Paying For It…or at least its portrayal of him in some scenes.

“G-g-g-ghost World?”: Check out this neat “mush-up” of Ghost World and Scooby-Doo.

“So let me throw out a few vaguely related thoughts that I can’t really seem to flow in a cohesive narrative right now…”: Sean Kleefeld on what still strikes me as the strangest announcement of the weekend.

“I’m not the biggest Neal Adams fan. This will not change my mind”: Blog Into Mystery blogs into Adams’ Skateman #1. What I wouldn’t give to see Adams have Skateman team-up with Batman in a Batman: The Odyssey special…

That White Queen costume doesn’t look quite 1960s, and yet doesn’t look quite modern to me either: Total Film attempts era-appropriate X-Men: First Class for their issue featuring the upcoming X-Men film.

Great headline, guys: “The Green Lantern comic is the basis for a movie due in June”

That’s about 23 more expressions than most super-comics artists seem capable of mustering these days: Brad Mackay closely examines a two-page spread of various Superman faces and expressions he found in DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle. (Via Comics Reporter)

And they’ve already got a theme song!: A recent installment of James Kochalka’s American Elf diary strip was entitled “Pitching Superf*ckers,” and was about he and four guys on his team pitching the four people on “their team.” “I could write a whole graphic novel about the emotional dynamics in that room,” Kochalka wrote. Man, I would love to read that graphic novel. Almost as much as I’d like to see a Superf*ckers cartoon.

Mr. Tawny would look swell dressed as Eustace Tilley: In a follow-up of sorts to a piece on Chip Kidd and Geoff Spear’s Shazam! book, Jaime Wolf of the New Yorker writes a nice, short biography of Captain Marvel creator C.C. Beck, paying particular attention to the part of his career after he stopped making Captain Marvel comics, and instead turned to Captain Marvel paintings. Wolf mentions he’d like to eventually see a gallery show of those paintings. I’d settle for a nice book collecting images of them.

It’s Even More Depressing Than Usual, Charlie Brown!: In the spirit of Garfield Minus Garfield comes “3eanuts”, which chops the fourth and final panel off of installments of Charles Schulz’ Peanuts strips, thus depriving each narrative of the tension-relieving punchline.

Gary Groth on Carl Barks: The Fantagraphics publisher talks a bit about his company’s upcoming collection of the great Good Duck artist’s duck comics in the latest issue of The Carl Barks Fan Club Newsletter.

Wow: Check out Jillian Tamaki’s hand-sewn book covers.

Hey remember when DC published a comic for little girls by Peter Bagge and Gilbert Hernandez?: Well, Fantagraphics is collecting it. That was one of those occasional comics from the Big Two that seems so incredibly unlike anything you’d ever expect them to publish taht it kind of seems like someone just made it up or something. Like, if someone told me about it, I might think they were lying. Except in this case, I remember the house ads and seeing it on the shelves.

“Who’s the pair everywhere at each high-class affair?”: Hey, it’s the entire eleven-minute and eighteen-second Snake ‘N’ Bacon pilot!

“11 Reasons why Marvel’s Godzilla is still King”: It’s difficult to argue with any of these, really.

Who’s morning Johnny Storm?: At The Cool Kid’s Table, Ben Morse dicuss the totally dead forever Johnny “Human Torch” Storm’s “various girlfriends and shape shifting alien wives.” Prior to that, he posted pictures of the Greek symbol Omega in various superhero comics for some reason. He included Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple’s fairly awesome Omega The Unknown, but negelected to include the original, totally awesome Omega The Unknown.

If getting a Superman comic just right is a hard feat to accomplish in the 21st century, it’s nothing compared to getting one featuring his pal just right.

While the Silver Age stalwart Jimmy Olsen has never, ever gone away from his supporting character gig in the Superman comics, he hasn’t been a successful star in his own right for decades now, and the various attempts to make him work as a leading man in the post-relevance, post-Crisis, post-“Comics aren’t just for kids anymore!’ era never seemed to work out quite right.

In the last few years, for example, we’ve seen James Robinson put Olsen at the center of a dark, deadly serious sci-fi espionage thriller plot as part of the “New Krypton” direction of the Superman books, and Paul Dini and a battalion of writers and artists do…whatever they were trying to do in Countdown.

The problem with the character seems to be that while he is so fantastical that he’s extremely difficult to fit into the more realistic DC Universe line of the last few decades. There was always an almost magical realist quality to the character—a teenage reporter for a big city newspaper who had all sorts of fantastical adventures based solely on his proximity to Superman (and the scores of mad scientists that apparently populate the Metropolis suburbs), and who was always able to triumph, or at least survive, based on his wits. Powerless, he was kind of like Clark Kent, only without the deception, the milquetoast act and the need to change clothes in order to act.

Also, he was a kid, like his readers.

Of course, once kids stopped reading and more and more adult logic started being applied, well, it’s hard to even get past “teenage reporter”—Is he an intern? Did he go to J school? Why doesn’t he live with his parents?

Writer Nick Spencer, like relatively few others—Abhay Khosla in his Superman 80-Page Giant 2011 #1 short story, Grant Morrison in All-Star Superman #4—doesn’t seem to have had many problems making Silver Age Jimmy Olsen work in the 21st century. Or, if he did labor mightily to perfect his take and to find the best way to communicate it, one can’t see it in the final scripting. His Jimmy Olsen seems effortless.

He seems to have accomplished this by accepting the ground rules of the DC Universe and not tried rationalizing them or make too much real world sense out of them—this Jimmy Olsen is still a Silver Age, magical realist type of character and his world is still utterly fantastic. The writing—its characterization, its world-building, its dialogue, its storytelling—didn’t get more realistic, it simply got more sophisticated.

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Your second look at the new TV Wonder Woman?: The first photo of Adrianne Palicki as Wonder Woman that was released was much-discussed pretty much everywhere people discuss superheroes, and a common complaint seemed to be the shiny, plastic-y, off-the-rack look of the costume. Well, it looks less shiny, plastic-y and off-the-rack on set, as you can see in this series of images. I was a little bummed she changed boots, as the blue boots in that initial image were my favorite thing about the costume. I still contend the new Wondy costume looks infinitely better than the majority of the superhero costumes on Smallville, like this Blue Beetle get-up, for example. [UPDATE: Oops, looks like the main page also has the same images. That's the beauty of the Internet—you just don't get that kind of two people talking about the exact same thing at the exact same time in different sections of the same venue in print media!]

Speaking of Wonder Woman…: This H.G. Peter-drawn “Wonder Woman, Amazon Baby Sitter!” comic is fantastic, even if none of the events in the actual comic quite live up to the image on the title splash page, of Wondy pushing a baby carriage with a T-Rex happily crammed into it.

“If you look at the series, it’s typically Godzilla — he’s coming to wreak havoc on Japan…There’s no question that it’s unfortunate timing”: That’s IDW’s Ted Adams discussing this week’s release of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1 a San Diego Union-Tribune article about a Godzilla-destroying-Japan comic coming out in the midst of Japan’s current tragedies. When the earthquake an tsunami first hit, many political cartoonists turned to Godzilla as a symbol of Japan and/or devastation in Japan in their initial cartoon reactions. (I know I had a hell of a time yesterday thinking of a non-offiensive Godzilla gag to draw at the top of my new release preview column).

Jeff Smith visits Yakko, Wakko and Dot: Sadly, they didn’t seem to be home.

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez draws the Marvel Family: Check out Jeffrey Klaehn’s little gallery here. It still boggles my mind that when DC wanted to make Mary Marvel “sexy,” they crammed her into a tighter costume with a tiny, barely there skirt instead of just, you know, having a person who draws really well draw her really well.

AAAAAAAAAA!: In this post from Brian Hughes, he discusses why he seems to be buying fewer and fewer DC Comics lately. The main reason I call attention to this post is that Hughes also points out something I so far hadn’t noticed—Phil Jiminez is a great artist, but his Bouncing Boy will haunt your dreams.

Sexless Superman is my favorite Superman: A. David Lewis discusses Superman not being “a sexual being” at The Hooded Utilitarian. I disagree with a lot of what he writes in terms of factual stating—Superman’s not a sex symbol? Then why do so many people wanna have sex with him?—and comic book Superman seems to have sex with comic book Lois Lane all the damn time now that they’re married. Lewis’ article may go away towards explaining why seeing comic book Superman make bedroom eyes at comic book Lois Lane never fails to creep me out. I tend to think of them as my parents for some reason (Like, in the way that I would think about my parents, not in that I think they are actually my parents), and don’t want to hear them allude to doing it. Anyway, it’s well worth a read, being about superheroes and sex, everyone’s two favorite subjects.

IDW’s Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1 may not be the biggest release of the week, but the title character is certainly the biggest comic book protagonist this week. In this new ongoing series, Godzilla will be in the company of some of his monstrous Toho enemies and allies, and in the capable hands of  writers Tracy Marsh and Eric Powell (the latter of whom is also providing covers) and artist Phil Hester. It’s a $4 book.

I have two nagging questions about the series. First, will Marsh and Powell be able to formulate the perfect onomatopoeia to capture the sounds of Godzilla and his fellow monsters screaming and shooting things at each other? Because the sounds are probably my favorite part of the old movies (In a perfect world, Doug Moench would probably be called in to write just the sound effects, and John Workman to letter them).

The other is where exactly IDW expects to sell this thing, now that Godzilla has gone ahead and destroyed so many comic shops…

The Bronx Kill: The latest Vertgo Crime original graphic novel is from longtime Vertigo writer Peter Milligan, with art by James Romberger. The subject matter? A frustrated author who must find his missing wife wit the help of his police officer father.

Butcher Baker, The Righteous Maker #1: This is Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston’s new series about a superhero coming out of retirement, and it has a hell of a title. Huddleston’s art looks pretty great too, although it doesn’t sound or look like this is going to be a book for everyone. See for yourself here.

Caligula #1: Caligula, David Lapham and Avatar Press—a perfect combination? Sounds like. Lapham writes this historical horror story about one of Rome’s most notorious emperors, here possessed by a demon. German Nobile provides the art. It’s a $4 comic. You can see a preview here.
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The saddest thing you’ll read all day: Deadline Hollywood reprints the contents of a letter the late Joanne Siegel, wife of Superman creator Jerry Siegel and the inspiration for Lois Lane, sent to Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes just a few months before she died. The issues raised sure makes discussions like who’s playing Lois Lane in the latest Superman movie seem kind of frivilous, huh?

My mind is having trouble processing the idea of Bill Murray’s Batman…which makes me want to see it all the more: Michael Rechtshaffen recounts the many famous names who either clamored for or were once considered for the film roles of Superman and Batman.

Jeff Parker on all things Jeff Parker: I enjoyed this wide-ranging interview with the talented Marvel writer currently responsible for Hulk and Thunderbolts.

J.H. Williams III tries to bring Funk to a pice of his cover art: Here’s a look at Williams cover for the somewhat controversial Static Shock Special, including a nice little walk-through of his thought and creative processes.

“And it’s a bloody good comic, with a couple of moments where it becomes the best thing Garth Ennis has ever done”: Bob Temuka reads Garth Ennis, John McCrea and company’s Hitman series. (I certainly can’t think of a better exmaple of Ennis writing strong characters and compelling drama). I agree it’s a great comic, and among the talented Ennis’ best. I really liked the way Temuka highlighted aspects of the book too, as it forced me to recall great bits from the series and, in  a few cases where I couldn’t remember the reference, to get curious about it all over again.

James Kochalka has got to have one of the most interesting resumes in comics: Check out the cover he provided for the magazine Trends in Cell Biology.

Did you know Jim Henson made a Muppet Wizard of Id pilot?: Well, he did, and Alan Gardner has four minutes of it.

My favorite part of comic book conventions I don’t attend?: Seeing Cliff Chiang’s convention sketches. This round from C2E2 includes some characters who look a bit unusual but also pretty awesome in Chiang’s style, like Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Ramona Flowers and Julie Adams…in the clutches of the creature from the Black Lagoon, of course.

The saddest title to a blog post I’ve read in months: “I guess porn is the only way I get to see my favorite DC women on film”

Don’t look at this tumblr thingee: Seriously, don’t. You won’t like what you see! It’s not good for you! It might upset your stomach! (Via Mike “Black Fury” Sterling)

Marvel shipping two issues of their monthlies in a single mont, good or bad?: Bob Bretall discusses, and iFanboy offers further commentary. It’s a tricky one, especially if the plan is to publish more than 12 issues a year, as some folks at Marvel have stated was the plan. I agree that if you love the title, it’s a great thing, but if it’s one you’re on the fence with, the accelerated schedule will only accelerate the time in which you decide to drop a title. One likely side effect is diminishing the role of the artist in a particular title, though, as writing, say, 14 or 18 comic scripts a year (I think Brian Michael Bendis does that eveyr month, actually) instead of 12 is a hell of a lot easeir than drawing 14 or 18 comic books per year  instead of 12. Thoughts? (Via Comics Reporter)

Are superheroes still Jewish?: Eli Valley checks in. (By the way, I’d buy a pickle from Superman…and I don’t even like pickles). (Via Comics Reporter again…where would this entry be without Tom Spurgeon’s links to cherrypick from?)

Two thoughts on two great DC artists: Good God Rags Morales sure can draw, can’t he? I hated that comic book, and hate it more each time I reread it, but I’m having  a hard time thinking of a better-drawn bad comic from the last 20 years or so. Why isn’t DC (or someone, anyone) publishing a monthly, Morales-drawn comic? That’s something I’d love to spend my comic book money on (Speaking of Morales and how awesome he is, did you guys pick up the recently recleased Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms Vol. 1 from IDW? If not, you totally should; it’s Morales doing non-superhero stuff, and it’s great). Also, DC’s Source blog is kicking off another Flashpoint Friday, with a Jim Lee redesign of Element Girl (Now Element Woman), last seen in Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred’s Wednesday Comics strip. Her costume is…pretty dumb, actually, just patches of clothing here or there, and I have no idea how it stays on (Glue? Elemental powers? An invisible fabric stretching between the visible stuff?). It made me realize that although I love Lee as an artist, I don’t care for his costume design work at all (factoring in his Wonder Woman and Huntress redesigns).

Wow, whatever happened to sugar, spice and everything nice? That panel is from Peyo and Yvan Delporte’s story La Schtroumpfette , recently translated and published by Papercutz in their fourth Smurfs collection, The Smurfette.

Now, as a reader and as a critic, I think it’s always important to consider the context a work was originally created in, and, at least as a critic, not to judge by the standards of the days. The Smurfette comic was made in 1966,  in Belgium (a country whose mid-20th century culture I know exactly nothing about), so I’m reading it from 55 years in the future.

Additionally, the Smurfs comics aren’t terribly complex in their characterization. The majority of the characters introduced into the series so far all have exactly one character trait a piece, which they are named after—Grumpy is grumpy, Lazy is lazy, etc–and the most complex seem to be the ironically named Harmony and Brainy, who are named for traits they think they possess but are actually the opposite.

Even still, it’s hard to read The Smurfette and not wonder if Peyo and Delporte were coming out of terrible relationships when they made this comic or what. The above panel, in which the wicked sorcerer Gargamel follows a spell to create a female Smurf, is part of his plan to wreak a terrible vengeance on the Smurfs. Apparently, the existence of a female in their all-male world is all he thinks it will take to make them all completely miserable.

And he’s right!

The spell ends with a footnote, which appears along the bottom of the page as a disclaimer, “This text is the sole responsibility of the author of the spell-book ‘Magicae Formulae,’ Beelzebub Editions”, so readers won’t blame Papercutz for the portrayal of females.

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Oh wait a minute, that’s not one of those weird little trailers comic book publishers sometimes put together for “Spider-Island,” the big Amazing Spider-man arc by Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos (Which you can read more about here on the main site).

It’s actually the theaterical trailer for the American release of the not-very-good 1960 German-Yugoslav bikini girls-in-peril horror movie, The Horrors of Spider Island. It’s not about everyone in Manhattan getting Spider-Man’s powers, but is instead about a troupe of exotic dancers who end up on a remote, uncharted island after a plane crash. There they find a giant spider, whose venom turns the dancers’ manager into a half-man, half-spider monster. (How not-very-good was it? It was the subject of a 1999 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000).

Sorry, my mistake.

A great comics-related  you’re not going to read: Dean Trippe and Daniel Krall apparently pitched DC a series of ilustrated young adult novles called Lois Lane, Girl Reporter. I believe it’s currently being shelved alongside athe Absolute Edition of Tintin Pantoja’s Wonder Woman comic in Dream of The Endless’ library…

Mark Trail tracks Billy Keane: Drawn and Quarterly’s Chris Oliveros shares some images of a really neat looking place in Orlando. For comic strip fans, anyway.

How late is Batman Inc anyway, and who’s to blame?: In a image and information round-up post from his visit Wizard World Toronto, David Diep says the delays are “a combination of slowness on Grant and Yanick’s part” and that we should expect more delays and/or fill-ins (Paquette disagrees with what Diep reported, and takes the full blame for the book not being monthly). My favorite part of Diep’s post, however, was the sentence, “Francis [Manapul] revealed that Jim Shooter isn’t the easiest guy to work with.” Manapul was talking about the way Shooter’s writing style and his own art style mesh, not the reasons past pros have cited for Shooter not being the easiest guy in the world to work with.

In  other Batman scheduling related news…: Matt Duarte tries to figure out whatever happened to the caped crusader’s creative team (on Batman and Robin, which was created as a Morrison and friends book, and has since become a Batman Confidential/Legends of the Dark Knight-like book).

“‘Event fatigue’ is easy to say but hard to prove: how do you decide whether or not fans are sick of events if they still continue to buy the events?”: In the course of reviewing Fear Itself: Book of the Skull and some other recent books, Tim O’Neil wonders about how Marvel’s latest event got put together, and how it compares to the events it is following. Me, I think it’s a little too soon after Siege for more Norse gods business.

I don’t think they do  either of those things, personally: “Do Superhero Movies Make Us More or Less Fearful of Transhumanism?”

Noooooooooooo!: Achewood has gone on hiatus…and it sounds like it may be a long hiatus. This is obviously pretty bad news for fans of the strip, and pretty surprising when one considers that Chis Onstad has been a bottomless ocean of gags and ideas for years now. Of course, seeing as he’s seemingly done the work of at least a dozen cartoonists on that strip over those years—writing blogs in the voices of the characters, bits of prose, recipe books, etc.—perhaps it’s not that surprising.

I like the idea of The Leader vs. Anyone, really: Inspired by the latest Invincible Iron Man story arc, Ben Morse plays “Mix & Match Super Villains.”

Wait, neither of those guys is Japanese…: “Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield Among Frontrunners For ‘Akira’ Adaptation”

I’ve only published one, going-on-two comic books in my entire life, so I’m not exactly an expert in publishing decisions. I’m also not a comics retailer, so I know very little about the business of selling funnybooks to readers in comic shops. My lack of qualifications now clearly established, it still seems to me that releasing Captain America #615.1,  Captain America and Batroc #1, Captain America Comics #1, Captain America: Man Out of Time#5 and Marvel’s Greatest Comics: Captain America: Reborn #1 (not to mention an Essential volume), all on the very same day might be a few Captain America comics too many.

Arctic Marauder: One of the most interesting looking releases of the week, this is Fantagraphics’ representation of Adele Blanc-Sec creator Jacques Tardi’s 1972 Jules Verne-esque, Edwardian era “icepunk” adventure. You can learn more about it, and read a preview of it here. 

Batman Incorporated #4, Batman: The Dark Knight #2: The two best-selling Batman books, Grant Morrison’s franchise flagship and David Finch’s auter take, both show up on the same week, after unfortunate, difficult to understand delays (Morrison works with a different artist every three pages or so on his Batman work, and if Finch didn’t have two books in the can, why launch his book when they did?). In Batman Inc, Morrison and artist yanick Paquette send Batman back to Gotham to team-up with Batwoman; he’s probably going to break the news to her that her solo book is pretty much never going to happen (Check out the online solicitation for laughs, though—”And don’t miss the first issue of BATWOMAN’s new monthly series, on sale this month!”) In Finch’s book, Batman broods while looking at an unconscious lady’s breasts, while a giant Penguin looks on (Er, I’m just guessing by the cover).

Bookhunter: Jason Shiga’s critically acclaimed 2007 original graphic novel about a guy who hunts books is offered again. It’s a  $15, 145-page book, and shouldn’t require too much hunting to find. In fact, I imagine it will just be sitting there waiting for you at any of your finer local comic shops.
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Colleen Coover’s “Cat Ladies”: The Gingerbread Girl artist shares a commission of Catwoman and The Black Cat hanging out together. Odd, I always assumed those two characters would hate one another, but I guess they’re not as catty as I thought they’d be. ..

Kyle Baker Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Click already, click!

“The Problem with the New Teen Titans”: Ben Morse discusses DC’s difficulties in making the stars of Wolfman/Perez Titans work once Wolfman and Perez stopped doing them, comparing them to “the townies that graduate high school and then rather than go to college or move on, just hang around their old haunts trying to relive their glory days but often just coming off desperate.” He also suggests what DC should do with them. Simply not continually throwing them together every few years just to see that it doesn’t work and breaking them up for a few more years before trying again seems like the ideal place to start to me. I also agree with Morse that Wally West should totally be in the Justice League right now; in fact, it seems downright insane to me that he’s not.

Flog programming note: The Fantragraphics blog has a new addition to their “Weekend Webcomics” feature, Michael Kupperman’s Up All Night strip from Washington City Paper. The first installment is awesome.

If you’re gonna swipe, swipe from the best: Buzz Dixon notes an old pulp cover’s similarity to a 19th century painting, as well as a possible if rarely cited inspiration for Batman. (Via Comics Reporter)

So I had five years and I still haven’t figured it out?: Michael Cavna notes some cartoons noting Twitter’s fifth birthday.

The one aspect of Wonder Woman that always garners attention?: Costume redesigns. Here’s Cavna, E!, New York Magazine‘s Vulture blog, Project: Rooftop and you can find a sizable round-up at the bottom of this When Fangirls Attack link collection.

“I’m mindful of the fact that original comic art is a dying animal in a way, as many artists are producing their work exclusively by digital means”: Don MacPherson on collecting original comic art.

You know who should draw Wonder Woman?: Richard Sala. One of my favorite pretty girl artists shares a rather old Wondy commission he did, featuring Dr. Poison and The Cheetah in the background. As great as Sala is at drawing pretty girls, he’s even better at drawing the sorts of colorful, creepy folks that composed Wondy’s original, criminally underused rogue’s gallery.

While there have been plenty of negative trends to emerge in mainstream serial super-comics over the last few years, one of the trends I’ve been quite happy to see the Big Two try out and stick with is weekly (and weekly-ish) comics series. You know, 52, Countdown, Trinity, Wednesday Comics, Amazing Spider-Man, Brightest Day, Justice League: Generation Lost, DC Universe Online Legends and so on.

They haven’t all been great comics, of course, and some of them have been downright lousy, but for someone with an every-Wednesday, weekly comics hobby/habit, there’s something quite refreshing about the dependability and regularity of the schedule—especially given that so many “monthly” comics have become “whenever-the-creators-get-‘em-done-ly.”

Outside of the thrice-monthly turned twice-monthly Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel’s weekly-ish comics have been trying out five-issue miniseries in five-week months, like last year’s weird, confused but still kind of fun Heralds series and, this month, 5 Ronin.

I like weekly-ish comics so much that the schedule was actually what sold me on trying it out this series…well that and the attachment of writer Peter Milligan, whose best comics are great and his worst comics are better than those of most writers.

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But how does he go to the bathroom?: “Amazing Yoshi Puppet Costume Stomps All Other Marios at Wizard World”

I love this headline: Particularly because “Hey, why not have Wolverine fight everybody?” doesn’t really seem like a capital I idea. That doesn’t mean the comic won’t be cool, of course; after all, it’s all in the execution.

Four panel Jason crossover comic: I’m not surprised he took out the others so quick, but after decades of combat training, I woulda thought Beetle Bailey would be harder to beat. (Via Flog)

Jeez, how old is Mr. Wilson then?: “Dennis The Menace Turns 60″

Keith Knight draws Godzilla: The occasion, sadly, isn’t a happy one. Knight’s text-heavy strips like this always bear some consideration though, I think, both as a testament to how potent his images are that he can get away with using so few and one hardly notices and because they “read” just like comics, despite the fact that the word-to-image ratio is so out of whack.

Whoever it is who owns the Sheena license should talk to Ross Campbell: These are awesome, especially so given the reservations he expressed concerning jungle girl concepts. Given his ability to draw sexy women and to draw realistic women, Campbell is actually a great artist for this genre, as icky as it can be conceptually.