Apple announced yesterday NBC Universal will pull all of their content available on iTunes. The cause of the dispute? NBC Universal wants to sell episodes for $4.99 each, more than double the original price of $1.99.

“We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers.”

NBC said they will withdraw from iTunes in December, midway through the season. Apple responded by cutting ties in September, dropping NBC before the season starts.

The format wars continue as Twentieth Century Fox unveiled their Blu-Ray Disc marketing strategy with the announcement that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Live Free or Die Hard movies will debut Fox’s first multi-player strategy game and “advanced” BD-Java games for high definition formats.

“Who Dares Defy Galactus?, will be Fox’s first multi-player strategy game, which allows players to be Silver Surfer, and save the galaxy, or Galactus, who wants to eat it for supper.

The other game featured on the disc is a trivia game called “Saving The World One Question At A Time” where a wrong answer will lead to another planet into Galactus’ celestial stomach.

Maybe these will be the best Fantastic Four video games to date.

The full press release from Buisnesswire, including Die Hard details is after them jump.

Fantastic Four will be released on October 2 in North America and October 9th for the rest of the world.

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Telltale Games uploaded the new Sam & Max Season Two trailer as well as some screenshots on their website.

Related: Sam and Max to hit road once more.

Spin-offs is Blog@Newsarama’s weekly wrap on licensing. Buffy toys cancelled, New Gods toys based on Kirby’s art, and how Aliens Kubrick lead me to find advertisements for old arcade machines.

Diamond Select Cancels Buffy Toys

The comic series is doing well, but the toys are dead. Action-Figure.com reported the Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figures have been cancelled.

As of today Diamond has officially cancelled their Revamped line of Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figures. They are claiming it was due to a lack of interest by the consumers.

Also on it’s death bed is the Judge wave. As per Diamond that wave is scheduled to be cancelled. It has been said they would need to sell an additional 3000 pre-orders of complete sets to make this wave worthwhile.

We are still waiting on an announcement for the upcoming Willow/Kennedy/Kendra wave of Deluxe figures. Based on the above cancellations I don’t get a good feeling for the deluxe figures.

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Spin-offs is Blog@Newsarama’s weekly wrap on licensing. Today, new DC Keepsake Ornaments, some Conan news and Spider-Man on the green.

Little DC costumes at Hallmark

Decorate your tree this year with Hallmark’s new Keepsake Ornaments representing super-hero closets.

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Kicking off the Toronto Comic Arts Festival last night was the third annual Doug Wright Awards, which celebrates excellence in Canadian artistic or alternative comics.

Walking away with Best Book was Joe Ollman, for his work, This Will All End in Tears.

CBCnews.ca covered the event.

Ollman’s work explores people’s everyday obligations and turmoil.

“What contradictions, what energy, what tension, what struggle, what humour, what characters!” said writer Judy MacDonald, speaking on behalf of the five-member Wright Award jury.

Ollman’s collection transport readers “into cramped and messy living rooms where we discard ourselves and want to stay,” she said.

“These stories and characters aren’t tidy. The ends aren’t tidy. Life, fear isn’t tidy,” she said. “Art doesn’t have to be tidy either.”

The Best Emerging Talent winner was Rebecca Kraatz, creator of House of Sugar.

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If you have heard, seen, or read any news lately, you probably know about the massive Mattel Toys recall. Yesterday, a second recall was announced, this time including Barbie, Batman, Polly Pocket and One Piece. The Brisbane Times reported:

Mattel Australia is recalling more than 460,000 toys across 31 varieties, including Batman and Barbie accessories, in its second major recall this month.

Cruising around the internet and hearing people talk, the majority of the panic focuses around lead paint in all of their Mattel products. People almost makes it sound like every Mattel toy is being recalled. But before you throw out all your precious Batman and JLU action figures and taint landfills with toxic levels of lead, it’s worth going to Mattel’s website and checking out what was actually recalled and why.

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Spin-offs is Blog@Newsarama’s weekly look at the wonderful world of licensing. This week, we’ll celebrate LEGO’s 75th birthday, see what’s new with Milk and Cheese, Go back-to-school with the Transformers and look at the new Hello Kitty and Edward Scissorhands dolls from Korea.

LEGO turns 75

In 1932, Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen began making wooden toys which eventually evolved into what we know today as LEGO. August 10th marked the 75th anniversary of LEGO, and since those humble days of wooden toys, fans of all ages played with and painted their very own LEGO toys, including artist Todd Nauck, who made an impressive collection of custom LEGO people.

n 1999, LEGO Star Wars was introduced, the first license LEGO product in the company’s history. The success of the Star Wars line lead to LEGO grabbing other licenses including Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Batman, Spongebob Squarepants and Indiana Jones.

Greg Hyland of Lethargic Lad fame, worked on comic strips for both LEGO Batman and LEGO Spongebob Squarepants. LEGO also called Hyland to design a Star Wars image. His design was reconstructed into an 11′ x 5′ 82,000 piece mural seen at Star Wars Celebration IV and later at San Diego Comic Con 2007.

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Italian fashion designer Miuccia Prada was so impressed with the 2004 “3D Live animation” movie Appleseed, she offered to design two costumes for heroine Deunan Knute, in the upcoming sequel, Appleseed: Ex Machina.

From Fashion Television:

“Watching the previous ‘Appleseed,’ I thought that the expression of contrast in man and machine, violence and love was wonderful,” the designer said at a press conference here earlier this month. “I designed something contemporary that matches the movie’s feelings.”

The latest trailer for Appleseed: Ex Machina, highlights the Prada designs as we ll as a wee bit of action.

It seems like Appleseed was a big inspiration for Prada. Several fashion publications noted that Prada’s 2006 fall collection, Metropolitan Armor, clearly shows the designer drew some of her futuristic and cyberpunk influences from Appleseed.

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Spin-Off – Something, such as a product, that is derived from something larger and more or less unrelated; a byproduct. – answers.com

Welcome to the first edition of Spin-Offs. Spin-Offs is a new, weekly article looking at things inspired by comics. I imagine the bulk of my features will have licensed products, but hopefully I can find something off the beaten path to post here. I want to have fun with this so here we go!

We girls can do anything, right Kara?

Los Angeles based boutique Intuition, “Catering to celebrities and Hollywood wives”, struck a deal with Warner Bros. to launch an exclusive line of clothing and knick-knacks created by several manufacturers.

The Supergirl collection of merchandise includes an S-shield diamond necklace by D’Annunzio; tees, tanks and hoodies by Junk Food Clothing; halter sundresses by FEW; limited edition flip-flops by Havaianas; ballet flats with Jibbitz by Crocs; a sport bag by Crocs; Bejeweled Swarovski embellished tees; embroidered painter hats by Goorin Bros. and gold charm necklaces by White Trash Charms. Products range from $23 to $1000 USD. The Bejeweled Supergirl Swarovski T-Shirt (shown to the right) retails for $130. I’m currently trying to convince my boyfriend I need some of the shirts. For… umm… work! Yes… work.

So what is the appeal of Supergirl? Intuition has this to say:

Show the world how powerful you are with the adorable new SUPERGIRL fashion collection! The line is based on the universally recognized symbol of strength and leadership – the S-shield, and celebrates the power of independence and self expression of today’s young woman. Fans include Molly Sims, Taryn Manning, Gabrielle Reece, and Tori Spelling.

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“So sad that it should come to this. We tried to warn you all but oh dear?”

Sorry, I couldn’t stop singing…where’s that title paragraph…here we go…

The comic blogosphere seems to grow larger every day and just like comics, sometimes it’s pretty easy to get a little lost. “Meanwhile …” will act as your map, pointing out what interesting discussions are happening out there while you’re reading Blog@Newsarama.

Have you been paying attention to the last couple of Meanwhile titles?

“I’m moving through some changes, I’ll never be the same.”

“Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.”

and now “So long and thanks for all the fish.” I’ve left clues, but now it’s time to be frank.

I’m sad to say that I’m leaving Meanwhile. I know, I know. You’re saying, “Again?”. Yep, I’m leaving again, but this time I’m getting paid to do so. I’m leaving to help start a new site that’s set to pop up pretty soon. I’ll mainly be writing reviews, but I may have another column in me. I can’t let you know the name of the site yet, but I can give you a little hint. They also cover video games. Yeah, I know… that really narrows it down.

Anyway, on with the column. I’m sure JK will be by with some news about what’s going to happen to Meanwhile in the next few days.

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It’s time for me to put the furniture back where I left it and bid you a tearful adieu. Like all good guests I must thank the host, Newsarama, for having me. A big thanks also to Kevin Melrose and J.K. for their invaluable assistance.

andi

Live the dream. Show off your portfolio and amaze the editor so much, they hire you on the spot to draw their next big series. One of the oldest traditions and the meat of the comic con experience is trying to get hired as an artist. Do you want to live the dream? Here are five things to do at the San Diego Comic-Con to help you make it a reality.

1. Get a portfolio review by an editor: So you’ve got your most exciting sequentials and your hottest pin-ups. And it’s wrapped up in a nice leather-bound folder. Now you can stand in line for hours waiting for an editor to see them! Swing by each individual publisher to get submission guidelines. A few years ago, DC Comics started holding the DC Talent Search Orientation. In lieu of having attendees standing for long hours blocking off valuable con floor walking space, DC started to use one of the conference rooms to set up reviews.

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I thought this was pretty cool. Earlier in June, the Joe Shuster Award Harry Kremer Award for Outstanding Comic Book Retailer was awarded during the Paradise Comics Comicon in Toronto. The store I regularly shop at, Happy Harbor Comics, was this year’s winner. I was able to talk to Happy Harbor comics owner, Jay Bardyla about his win, his community work, and the local comics scene in Edmonton, Alberta.

First of all, congratulations on winning the Joe Shuster Harry Kremer award for outstanding retailer.

Thank you very much. It was a huge honour to be nominated by our customers and, of course, an even bigger honour to be presented with the award, not an easy task considering the number of nominees and the quality of many of the stores out there.

Your store is new to the Edmonton area (opened within the past few years). What made you decide to move to Edmonton? And has the success and popularity of the store in such little time surprised you?

We moved the store from Jasper, Alberta, which had been open since 2000, because we wanted to do more with the business. To do many of those things we needed to be in a larger population base and since we had a large number of customers from Edmonton that we were dealing with remotely, it made sense to come to them and open a store with a “built-in” customer base.

As far as our popularity goes, I won’t say I’m terribly surprised as we tried very hard to create a non-typical store. From location to colour scheme and layout, we’ve put a lot of effort into making the store comfortable to everyone. Further, we never hesitate on trying anything that we think may entertain, educate or bring our customers together into a solid comics community.

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July 1st is Canada Day. I thought I’d post a couple of Canadiana posts in celebration of Canada’s 140th.

For years, the Canadian government has a website celebrating Canadian comic book history, but until recently, I didn’t realize ow few people knew about the site.

The Guardians of the North: The National Superhero in Canadian Comic-Book Art website is based on an archival exhibition of the same title that was originally mounted at the National Archives’ Canadian Museum of Caricature in 1992. Curated by Canadian comics scholar and archivist John Bell, the original exhibition drew upon the holdings of the National Archives of Canada, the National Library of Canada and various private collections in order to explore the history of Canada’s national superheroes – costumed comic book heroes that personify the Canadian spirit and identity.

Guardians of the North will have served its purpose if it encourages Canadians to remember their own superheroes and to celebrate the careers of the comics artists and writers who dared to offer us visions of a powerful, transcendent heroism that was uniquely Canadian. Hopefully, here in cyberspace, our national superheroes will soar.

I really felt like I learned a lot from this site. For example, Canadian superheroine, Nelvana, pictured above, first appeared months before Wonder Woman saw print. It’s a fascinating look at superheroes with a Canadian heritage, and I encourage every Canadian comic reader or anyone curious about comic book history to check it out.

Links:

English: The Guardians of the North: The National Superhero in Canadian Comic-Book Art

French: Protecteurs du Nord : Le superhéros national dans la bande dessinée canadienne

So here it is the last Friday in the month already, and I didn’t do half the things I meant to do.  Didn’t dish the dirt on fellow creators, perform an online striptease or explain my personal conspiracy theory linking rockhopper penguins to the Bush White House.

But I’ve had a great time, and I want to thank the Newsarama team, especially John Parkin, for making me so welcome here and making the process so effortless.  And thanks, too, to everyone who went in for the competitions.  It’s been great.

But there will come a greater one after me.

I’m guessing…

Cartoon Network sent out a press release and the above image about the new Transformers animated series, slated for 2008.

The eye-popping 2-D animated series is a new twist on the original high-octane, animated action-adventure series with new characters alongside legends such as Optimus Prime and Megatron. Each episode will present a standalone storyline featuring everyday heroes who do good deeds that triumph over evil. Transformers Animated series will be co-produced by Cartoon Network Studios.

Twenty-six, half-hour episodes will be produced as well as a 90-minute special of Transformers Animated which is scheduled for release in early 2008 on Cartoon Network in the U.S. Matt Youngberg (“Teen Titans,” “The Batman”) is the supervising director, Derrick Wyatt (“Teen Titans”) will provide the character designs and Sam Register (“Ben 10,” “Teen Titans”) will serve as executive producer of the series. Marty Isenberg (“Danny Phantom,” “X-Men,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) acts as head writer.

Set on Earth in the near future in Detroit, the alien Transformers are thrust into a world populated by humans and automatons. As visitors to Earth, the Transformers–Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Prowl, Bulkhead and Ratchet–work in the human world, interacting with the ‘natives’ in exciting and humorous ways. Transformers Animated has been created to showcase the heroic Autobots working together to battle the evil Decepticons and save Earth with kid-relatable plot lines filled with humor, distinctive character personalities, and dynamic action.

You can read the full press release on Seibertron.com

Kobe, Japan will be the home of a life-sized Gigantor statue.

The 18 meter high, 70 ton Ironman-28 will carry the price tag of 135 million yen. The project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2008.

Debuting in 1958, Tetsujin 28-gō was the first “giant robot” series, which became a staple in Japanese pop culture.

The statue will serve as a double memorial, marking both the birthplace of creator Mitsuteru Yokoyama, who passed away in 2004 in an apartment fire, as well as celebrate the revitilization of the area, which was devastated in the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

From Asahi.com

At the Six Flags Amusement Park in Louisville, Kentucky, a teenaged girl lost her feet when they were amputated by a stray cord.

CNN reports:

A cord wrapped around the (13-year-old’s) feet and severed them at her ankles while she was on the “Superman Tower of Power,” a police dispatcher said. The girl was taken to a local hospital.”I seen the car go up. Then, like, the cable broke, I heard — pwchh — and I heard a lot of people screaming,”Chris Stinnett, who was at a ride next to the Tower of Power, told CNN affiliate WDRB/WMYO-TV in Louisville.

Her feet were recovered by Six Flags staff and were sent to the hospital with her, where she has undergone surgery.

The Superman Tower of Power is a free-fall thrill ride that takes passengers 177 feet into the air, then drops 154 feet at 54 mph, then stopping just 20 feet above the pavement.

Since the accident, Six Flags has closes similar rides in their amusement parks across the country. Another amusement park company, Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., closed it’s drop rides in the US and Canada.

The ride will remain closed until a full investigation by state officials and “our team of experts” is conducted, Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom spokeswoman Carolyn McLean said.

North America’s best inprov groups have converged on Edmonton, Canada this week to compete in Improvaganza 2007, a competition of wits, humour, and some of the best live, spontaneous entertainment seen on stage. The host city’s entry, Rapid Fire Theatre, is performing with the theme Zombie Batman. You can catch Improvaganza 2007 at the Varscona Theatre until this Saturday, June 23.

If you are in the Edmonton area this week, I highly, HIGHLY recommend attending this. The local talent here is so good, that when I used to live in Edmonton, I regularly went to the Varscona Theatre to see the various improv shows, including the long running Die-Nasty, a live soap-opera which holds an annual 3-day non-stop marathon, which I’ve actually attended more than once, and I HATE soap operas! From what I understand, one of Rapid Fire Theatre’s actors, Mark Meer, will be playing the Joker in Zombie Batman. And if his Joker is any bit as good as his Doctor Doom that appeared in Die-Nasty, then the audience is in for a real big treat!