Do the Guaridans of the Globe get team uniforms?: I hope so, for President Barack Obama’s sake, as that is one ill-fitting suit he’s wearing there. That is supposed to be Barack Obama, right? I assume it is, since he mentions Amazing Spider-Man #583 and he clearly isn’t Spider-Man, as it’s not much of a likeness, is it? Oh well, I imagine the president must be a really hard person to draw, given how hard it is to find visual reference material of the shy, private, hard-to-photograph recluse. (And while I’m complaining about nothing, is it cool to call your super-team The Guardians of the Globe when there’s already a team called the Global Guardians? Isn’t that like calling your team the League of Justice or The Four Who are Fantastic?)

Thinking about the thought balloon: Joe McCulloch has a great think piece about thought bubbles in comics, brought on by a quote from Stephen King about being told not to use them in his script for American Vampire.

“Even if you can get past the fact that they lettered an entire graphic novel in Times New Roman… still managed to get everything wrong“: Chris Sims, the Internet’s #1 critic of bad comics involving the undead, reviews Twilight: The Graphic Novel, and finds it to be pretty terrible. The main problem? The lettering. I haven’t read it yet (I’m waiting for Twilight: The Graphic Novel—The Novelization), but Sims posts some pretty terrible-looking examples. If I had to guess, I would assume they tried to keep the bubble-shapes of manga, but those bubbles tend to be shaped the way they are because they once hosted dialogue written in a different language using a different alphabet and read in a different order. Anyway, I always enjoy seeing Sims exposed to things he doesn’t like.

You tell him, Geoff Boucher!: “Snoop Dogg wants to know why there are no black superheroes”

I would have guessed Tommy “Hitman” Monaghan: Mid-week MTV’s Splash Page imagined a “last man standing” battle royale between various Irish superheroes (and heroes of Irish descent), to determine the most powerful of the lot. I didn’t know Captain American was Irish. Plenty of Irish comics characters didn’t make that particular list, but this person drops quite a few names in a holiday piece fantasy-casting them. I’m fairly confident that Slaine could make Kyle Rayner eat his ring, lantern and the nearest couple dozen members of the Green Lantern Corps if they ever got in a fight.

I had Leslie Thompkins in the office pool: If you missed it on the main page, Vaneta Rogers interviewed writer David Hine about the identity of Black Mask II, which was revealed in Wednesday’s Batman #697. It’s a pretty big surprise, but I think it’s more of a, “Well, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me” sort of surprise, rather than an, “Of course! Why didn’t I see it before?!” sort of surprise. But I’m just glad it wasn’t Jason Todd, who in the past was revealed to be the mysterious new Red Hood, the second mysterious new Red Hood, the mysterious new muderous Nightwing and one of the several people playing Hush.

Okay, back on schedule…

So what’s the range on a JLA teleporter, anyway?: Forget about the Titans breaking up for the twelfth time, didn’t Starfire just join the Justice League? What’s she doing joining the space-faring REBELS team too?

“Who would shed a tear for ‘Hägar the Horrible’ in the age of ‘Fun Home’ and ‘Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth’?”: Josh Lambert considers the fact that the newspaper comic strip’s days may be numbered, in the lede to this review of Jules Feiffer’s new memoir, Backing Into Forward.

How are they going to do Old Lace…CGI or Muppet?: Man, this Runaways movie doesn’t look a damn thing like the comic.

“The novel passed my 11-year-old girl’s test with high marks”: Hope Larson’s upcoming Mercury gets mentioned in this round-up of local writers and author readings in a Mountain Xpress column.

Do…do they come in men’s sizes? Maybe a medium?: I…I have a, um, a friend who might like to wear something like this around the house.

If America is the new Rome, we’re in for some wacky years ahead: In celebration of the Ides of March, Bully The Little Stuffed Bull presents the fall of Rome in comics form and it’s…well, you’re going to have to click on the link to believe it. Seriously, click that link.

Not only is he not my favorite, I completely forgot he even existed: Unsure how to address the “New Blood” heroes that arose from DC’s 1993 line-wide summer crossover in his ongoing “Nobody’s Favorites” feature—since they’re all nobody’s favorites with the one obvious exception—blogger Andrew Weiss decides to pick the worst of all the New Bloods. Who is it? Click to find out!

What the world needs: More hobo comics. Thank you, J.D. Wilkes!

American Vampire #1: The presence of Stephen King is definitely the big draw of this new Vertigo series about a new species of solar-powered vampires, so big ups to Vertigo for going with a nicely designed cover by artist Rafael Albuquerque instead of slapping a gigantic “STEPHEN KING Presents: STEPHEN KING’s American Vampire by STEPHEN KING and Friends” on the front of the book. This first issue, like the next four, will be over-sized and feature two stories. King and Albuquerque are joined by writer Scott Snyder. It’s a $4 book.

Avengers: Standoff: How big a deal is Geoff Johns these days? Big enough that Marvel, the company he’s not working for and whose editors and creators are always complaining about DC’s efforts to promote Johns’ books and events, are publishing a fancy-schmancy $25 hardcover collecting a bit of his short Avengers run…with “Geoff Johns” taking up as much cover real estate as the “Avengers” logo.  Collected within the book’s pages are a whole mess of 1998 Avengers books, by Johns, Mike Grell, Dan Jurgens, Alan Davis, Gary Frank and Ivan Reis.

Batman #697: Tony Daniel reveals the true identity of Black Mask II, who appeared during Daniel’s Battle for the Cowl miniseries. I hope it’s not Jason Todd again.

Batman International: This $18, 170-page trade paperback collects a trio of stories of Batman fighting crime in foreign locales. The Jim Lee cover image comes from the cover of last May’s Batman in Barcelona: Dragon’s Knight, a Mark Waid and Diego Olmos one-shot collected within. Also included are Alan Grant and Frank Quitely’s 1998 one-shot Batman: The Scottish Connection, and Grant and artist Arthur Ransom’s two-part 1993 Legends of the Dark Knight story “Tao.” None of these stories reinvent the Bat-wheel or anything, but they’re all quite solid and feature some great artwork.

The Brave and the Bold #32: Would the JMS on Superman and Wonder Woman announcement have been more exciting if it came before his run on Brave and the Bold which, while full of interesting pairings and risky stories, has mainly proved that he doesn’t really “get” any of the DC characters he’s written there so far? This one is another interesting pairing, Aquaman and Etrigan The Demon. We’ll see how it goes. Art by Jesus Saiz, as per usual.

Bunny Drop Vol. 1: This $13, 200 page trade paperback from Yen Press tells the story of a 30-something bachelor who adopts the seemingly mute young daughter of his grandfather, sired with a much younger woman and completely unknown to the rest of the family until after the grandfather’s funeral.

Dead@17 : The Witch Queen #1: Writer/artist Josh Howard kicks off a new four-part mini, this one billed as the franchise’s “PENULTIMATE CHAPTER.” I really love Howard’s artwork, but am ridiculously far behind on this series of miniseries. Maybe I’ll finally catch-up once it’s over.

Green Arrow #31: What’s next for Green Arrow Oliver Queen after shooting Prometheus in the face with an arrow? Judging by the cover of this issue, crying in a weird church with Justice Leaguer stained-glass windows. Writer J.T. Krul and artist Diogenes Neves lead GA down his post-Cry path, which includes being chased by his fellow teammates and revealing a secret that “will change his life and the lives of the people around him forever.” Hmm…he voted for Bush in 2000? His goatee is fake? He never really liked Hal Jordan?

Green Hornet: Year One #1: Time for a spin-off already? But Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet #1 just shipped like two weeks ago, and that’s only the first part of a six-part series!

Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1: Marvel continues its efforts to make both Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente’s Hercules storyline and Jeff Parker’s Agents of Atlas story hard to follow by moving them both into a brand-new title…which is simply a two-issue miniseries. Why not just have two more issues of Incredible Hercules? I don’t know; I’m not in comics publishing.  Anyway, the immortal Olympian god Hercules totally died in the last issue of Inc Herc, and the mourning starts here! Since this is Pak and Van Lente, there will hopefully be more than just crying and eulogies going on. Also, there’s an AoA back-up as well, justifying that $4 price tag.

Nation X #4: One word: Doop!

Ristorante Paradiso: This $13, 175-page manga from Natsume Ono (Not Simple) tells the tale of a mother/daughte reunion and romance in and around a little restaurant in Rome.

Siege #3: It’s the penultimate issue of the four-part miniseries which is not only the, um, “THE MARVEL BLOCKBUSTER OF THE YEAR!!” but, you know, the one which depicts “the greatest battle ever seen: SIEGE!!” Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel, still doing their thing. Also in Siege-related events this week, there’s Brian Reed, Chris Samnee and company’s Siege: Embedded #3 and Bendis, Mike Deodato and company’s Dark Avengers #15.

Wonder Woman Chronicles Vol. 1: Hooray! This is the release of the week as far as I’m concerned, one of by asking after for quite a while now. Like the Superman and Batman Chronicles collection programs, this will collecting all of Wondy’s adventures in chronological order. The original William Moulton Marston and H.G. Peter Wonder Woman comics remain the very best Wonder Woman comics (in my not-so-humble opinion), and while there have certainly been great Wondy comics since, none have ever been this good. It’s $18 for 190 pages and includes material from All Star Comics, Sensation Comics and Wonder Woman #1. Please consider buying a copy, to encourage more volumes. Now I can finally quit asking for Wonder Woman Chronicles trades, and focus on asking after Plastic Man Chronicles and Captain Marvel Chronicles more loudly…

Hi gang. Thanks for your patience during the last few days as we made some improvements to Blog@. I’ve been saving up links while it was on the operating table, so I’ve got a deluge of ‘em for you this time out. The column will be of a more manageable size next time around.

“Superhero Tragedy Porn Is Bad For Comics”: The headline pretty much says it all. That’s Cyriaque Lamar writing about why things like mutilating the former Speedy and icing a grade-schooler for shock value probably aren’t great strategies for quality superhero comic books. Other reactions to Cry For Justice’s gross final issue include Corrina Lawson’s for Wired’s Geek Dad blog (“Do you really need to write in the death of a little girl in order to sell comics about Green Arrow and Speedy? Is that the very best storytelling possible for these characters?”) and Tucker Stone’s Savage Critic trend piece on baby-killing (Three instances is officially a trend, right?)

“Why So Many Superheroes Are Drawn to New York”: I enjoyed this New York Times article by Peter Gutierrez. He moderated a panel entitled “New York, the Super-City,” and the NYT had him write a few paragraphs about how New York influenced superhero comics. Sure, there’s a pretty obvious answer as to why the city had played such a big role—that’s where the comic book publishers and creators were all based—but it’s still an interesting thing to ponder. Especially given that New York (and faux-New Yorks like Metropolis and Gotham) are still the centers of the Big Two superhero universes, despite the fact that that fax machines and the Internet have enabled creators who have never even visited New York to work on comics set there. There’s also an eleven-image slideshow, including one of my all-time favorite comics—the one where Namor just sort of wanders around New York wrecking the joint while The Human Torch follows his trail of destruction.  Also on the subject of New York and superheroes, there’s this piece from The Atlantic.

“Higgins inspired by sketching, story of Pinocchio, vampires”: I love this headline, which sits atop an article about Dusty Higgins, the artist behind Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer. It’s a student newspaper, so I guess I shouldn’t make fun but, well, too late now.

“Four graphic novels to read before you die”: Well, four is a more manageable number than 1,000, but there are some surprising choices on this mini-list by Bryan Young. How surprising? Well, Alan Moore’s not on there, but Mark Millar and Jeph Loeb are, and one of those four comics is a licensed one based on a movie franchise.

“Jake brakes for superheroes”: MTV’s Splash Page reports that Jake Gyllenhaal Would ‘Never Pass Up a Superhero’. I think starring in Prince of Persia is close enough.

“Things haven’t gotten better since Milestone published its last comics in 1996…superhero comics present an even more lonesome landscape for those looking for characters of color”: This Techland piece by Evan Narcisse on Milestone comics is interesting, but I don’t think it’s true. I mean, Milestone may not have much of a presence on comics shelves now, but are there really fewer characters of color in superhero comic books today than in 1996? Really?

Just how sexy is Catman?: Let’s ask superhero sexiness-ologist Rachelle Goguen.

Miss Martians: Check out this collection of Miss Martian sketches at The Cool Kids Table. I think Juan Doe’s is my favorite Miss Martian.

There’s probably not a documentary out there that can dispel the stigma that the only people reading them are socially backwards freaks”: This guy did not care for word of the documentary Comic Book Literacy.

This person is wrong: Stardust isn’t a graphic novel-turned-book, it was a serialized, illustrated prose book turned book turned comics series turned graphic novel.

“The interesting thing about Disney is, for a company perceived as being stodgy, they do a good job of reinventing themselves”: That’s SLG Publishing’s Dan Vado talking about his company’s experience with their Disney licensed comic Haunted Mansion, which seemed a lot more SLG than Disney, in an article in The Seattle Times. It’s a business piece about Disney, although the world of comics comes up a few times, given that one big acquisition the company made relatively recently.

Don’t ask me why, but for some reason the thought of Superman and Lois Lane being intimate creeps me the hell out: Here’s John Glenn Taylor’s look at an early instance of the famous comics couple spending a night together. (Via Comics Reporter).

“But he found many newspapers were leery of dropping old standard strips for his pixelated strip about human-robot relationships”: Here’s another Seattle Times piece, this one about web comics creators like Diesel Sweeties’ Rich Stevens.

Attention Penguin!: This week’s Five For Fridays topic at Tom Spurgeon’s The Comics Reporter was that of what artists should illustrate the covers for what classic works of literature. There were a ton of great suggestions, so many that I hope that even if Penguin doesn’t make any of these happen, some enterprising publisher somewhere stumbles upon the list and commissions an pin-up collection of some of these artists doing imaginary book covers for public domain works. After all, it’s hard to have someone put the idea of a Junko Mizuno or Johnny Ryan Lolita cover into your head and not wanting to see what such a thing would end up looking like, you know?

With the news of Gail Simone stepping down from writing “Wonder Woman” still fresh on my mind, I got to thinking about Marvel’s attempt to celebrate women in comics with its new limited series, “Girl Comics.” I have to give Marvel credit for trying this with all the potential for it to be a flop. Aside from the inherent mixed bag quality of any anthology, it’s got a lot going for it. The best thing of all, I discovered the writing talent of Valerie D’Orazio and I’ll discuss her own one-shot, “Punisher Max: Butterfly” a little later in the column.

Back to “Girl Comics.” At first, I thought about what could be wrong with it. For instance, there are two profiles of women trail blazers at Marvel back when Stan Lee’s hair was jet black. That seemed like a creaky “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” sort of salute. But, even if it is, I’m really glad they did it because the two individuals, Flo Steinberg and Marie Severin, are definitely worthy of recognition. It’s been a “man’s world” like forever and we’re still evolving as a society. Whenever you have something like Marvel attempting to show its human side, that’s cool.

Another problem seems to be that weird pin-up of She-Hulk by Sana Takeda. It goes to show what happens when you depict a character but you stray away from the quality of the character and turn it into a mere sex object. Even the anatomy is off. You’ll notice that She-Hulk has two left feet. Apparently, the drawing has caught She-Hulk just as she’s had a mishap while skipping rope and has fallen and the rope, moving at hyperspeed, has bound her legs together.

Is it possible that Takeda is commenting on the awkward state of today’s woman? Does she see She-Hulk, as a woman, cursed instead of blessed with formidable strength and sexuality? Instead of being in a position of authority, does Takeda see She-Hulk as doomed with having the classic impediment of “two left feet”? Or is it just a playfully sexy scene? And where does fit alongside her other controversial work? It would be interesting to hear from her.

More than likely, Takeda just fell into the same old patterns that began when it was only men drawing unhealthy depictions of women. These type of drawings are obviously alive and well today. Some publishers seem to focus on the cheesecake with less thought given to the writing. Hopefully, that will improve. The subject of sex is not the problem but how one works it. At least DC and Marvel tend to have solid narratives and standards, right? Of course, the top publishers are working towards the highest levels of excellence. That said, this makes this sort of drawing stand out even more, like a big green sore thumb. I don’t think it was meant to open up discussion but was ill-conceived. Maybe, in a proper context, it could work but not in this case.

And then there’s the question of whether these comics are supposed to have a unique female sensibility or whether they just happen to all be created by women. The introduction by Colleen Coover implies a special female viewpoint with its panels of various superheroines. The stories that follow veer off into unexpected directions and seem to defy easy categorization that keeps things more lively and less obvious.

I love the fact that we basically get from this comic a little concert made up of all sorts of awesome talent. You’ve got G. Willow Wilson opening up the show, all her “Air” fans especially thrilled, as she and Ming Doyle riff on Nightcrawler with a most surreal story. And so on the down the line. Trina Robbins and Stephanie Buscema give us a less than perfect Venus who lets herself get caught up in the glitz of the fashion world. There’s Valerie D’Orazio and Nikki Cook’s excellent Punisher story. Lucy Knisley provides a nice comedic Doc Oc tale. Robin Furth and Agnes Garbowska give us a neat Fantastic Four fairy tale. And Devin Grayson and Emma Rios give us a nuanced story about the love triangle between Cyclops, Phoenix and Wolverine.

So, true believers, go get yourself some “Girl Comics” and, while you are at it, get a copy of “Punisher Max: Butterfly,” also published by Marvel, a most excellent read both in the writing and the art. Valerie D’Orazio pulls you in right away with her quirky narrative and the art of Laurence Campbell is just as inventive, does not miss a beat. This is like the magic that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips keep conjuring up but all its own. Turn to any page and you’ll find something refreshing in crime fiction.

The story revolves around a professional assassin known only as, Butterfly. We get deep inside her head to discover her motivations as she’s willing to put her life on the line to reveal a greater truth. We see as Butterfly struggles to write and then finally bring out into the world a book that reveals the inner workings of organized crime. The world of hired guns is played up for all it’s worth but we can see that this story aims for more than just one note.

D’Orazio and Campbell work together to really move the reader, especially on the theme of what happens when someone is negated as a human being. With impeccable timing, we see characters go from being alive to suddenly having blank slits for eyes. This device works extremely well since Butterfly is a character we can connect to.

It’s that human factor. If you don’t have that, you’ve got nothing. Honestly, why would anyone, creator or reader, want to aim lower? Given the opportunity, most people want high quality work. Things can stand in the way of this, of course, like ignorance. The truth is that, no matter what the content, it is the quality stuff that will be the most stimulating. It seems like an easy enough concept but one that, just as easily, gets overlooked. The appropriate attention to detail will always be appreciated in the long run whether the character is Madame Bovary, She-Hulk or Wonder Woman.

“The 10 Weirdest ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Adaptations”: It would have been easy enough to fill all ten of those slots on the list with comics, but this tonic.com article only uses two, looking to film, television and prose for the rest of them. Can you guess which two writer John R. Platt chose before clicking the link? The answer may surprise you.

“I was actually considering just dropping out and trying to go get a job at the Jim Henson Creature Shop making puppets”: So says Mouse Guard creator David Petersen, in this feature story about him, his signature series and the fact that he’ll be contributing to Archaia’s Fraggle-featuring Free Comic Book Day offering

“The Anthrax of Comic Books”: I’ve read a lot of reviews and reactions to the seventh and final issue of Justice League: Cry For Justice this weekend (And I do mean a lot. When Fangirls Attack alone has at least  30 of ‘em up). All of the reviews I’ve read have been extremely negative. Many of them involved a lot of swearing. I think the most damning one was offered by blogger Scott of Polite Dissent, who titled his post on the subject “The Anthrax of Comics” and called it the worst comic he’d ever read (Not sure if he’s read Ultimates 3 or not; that’s the worst one I’ve found so far). Johanna Draper Carlson only wrote two paragraphs about the issue, but I think she did a great job of distilling why killing the character they killed is so incredibly depressing in that relatively short space (Essentially, DC took something with unique potential and many idiosyncratic story choices and cashed it in for something that was cliched 25 years ago).

Is DC listening to reader reaction to Cry?: Superman is. And what does he have to say about it? Cheryl Lynn has the answer.

“One of the strange characteristics of contemporary bourgeois life is the sheer pleasure we take in inverting it”: Check out this New York Times review of Museum of the City of New York exhibit Charles Addams’s New York (Did I just break a rule for how many times you can say “New York” in a single sentence?) There’s plenty of great art there, and, I would imagine, in the exhibit itself.

“Amongst all of this blurring and borrowing, however, the one television concept that simply does not work for comic books is ‘the season’”: I really enjoyed this piece on some of the differences between television and comics by Avi Santo, which focuses on Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 (the comic book) in relation to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the television show.

Here’s a sample:

Seasons imply definite temporal boundaries. There is always an end in sight and part of the pleasure as well as the pain of viewing a season’s worth of TV is knowing that it will wrap itself up, well or poorly, within a finite number of episodes. Yes, serialized TV may leave viewers sweating through a season-ending cliffhanger or eight, but viewers still know that at a certain point the season will end, whether things are resolved or not, and that anticipatory foreknowledge is essential to the TV viewing experience.

It’s a smart piece, and given that comics folks sometimes talk about comics that have nothing to do with TV in terms of “seasons” (Marvel’s Runaways, Young Avengers and Agents of Atlas spring to mind), probably well worth a read, whether you care about Buffy at all or not.

You know who should draw Wonder Woman?: Jaime Hernandez.

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This seems like a good excuse to renew my call for a Hostess ad trade paperback collection: Check out “Crisis on Earth-Twinkie!”

Soon to be followed by “Cat Week” and “Matt Week”: The fine folks at Living Between Wednesdays follow last week’s zany Fat Week with Hat Week. First up? A recounting of that one time that Ben Grimm wore a shape-shifting alien as a top hat all night, and a look at some of the terrible hats that a superhero fan can buy and wear to prove that they like a particular superhero and that they have no taste.

“We’ve been pouring through the library of 7,000 Marvel characters looking for the next ‘Spider-Man’”: That’s Gary Marsh, entertainment president and chief creative officer of Disney Channels Worldwide, as quoted by The Hollywood Reporter in this story about upcoming Disney Channel projects. You’ve gotta admire Marsh’s enthusiasm, but I’m pretty sure Marvel’s been pouring through that same catalog looking for the next Spider-Man themselves for about 30 years now, and haven’t found him yet. (Also, shouldn’t that be “poring” instead of “pouring?”)

So, the old New Avengers are the new New Avengers?: Marvel keeps dribbling out Avengers line-up news, and so far the New Avengers team looks like it consists of Wolverine, Spider-Man, shirtless, nipple-less Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. All of whom have been in New Avengers for…ever?

No, no there is not: “Is there gold in Golden Age comic books?”

The Flash…?: “What Will The Flash Movie Be About?”

Is the Marvel Universe the Jewish Narnia?: Spencer Ackerman says it is.

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

Oh, so that’s why they’re called “Top Shelf”: Top Shelf has released some of their plans for 2010 and beyond on their brand-spanking new website, and there is a ton of great stuff to look forward to. New work from Alan Moore, Jeff Lemire, Nate Powell, Craig Thompson, James Kochalka and Jeffrey Brown. All-ages books, and stuff just for grown-ups. More Super Spy, more Korgi and and more Incredible Change-Bots. New printings of old stuff. New printings of new stuff. Kochalka’s Dragon Puncher, which has the above image as its cover.  Here are their 2010 plans, and here are their future plans.

“Except it turns out it’s very hard to make a lot of money off comics, unless they are mint-condition books from the ’50s, ’40s or even earlier”: In the wake of the million dollar Action Comics sale, Michigan writer Nancy Crawley brings a handful of her son’s old comic books to a local shop for a feature story on the current back-issue market.

“If they made him black, they really wouldn’t have to say much else”: Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic responds to the latest Captain America casting rumor, and uses that as a springboard to chat about the possibility of a black Cap and how well John Stewart’s race was handled in the Justice League cartoons. (Here’s a thought: Why not cast a Japanese actor as Captain America, and really blow everyone’s minds?)

Spoiler—James Kochalka is not really an elf: I really enjoyed this feature on the way some cartoonists draw themselves and the way they look in real life. (Via Comics Reporter, via Comixtalk)

This isn’t quite as awesome as the ad I imagined in my head while clicking on the link: Check out this Frank Miller-drawn Hostess ad at Brian Hughes’Again with the Comics.

Thank God for that…what if he didn’t?!!!: “EXCLUSIVE: Mark Millar gives Goyer/Nolan SUPERMAN reboot blessing!”

D+Q’s FCBD offering to feature Tubby: Um, maybe that’s not a bit of news that excites you as much as it does me, on account of the inordinate amount of affection I have for Little Lulu’s overweight, master-of-disguise foil. Tubby is my Batman and my Iron Man, my Hellboy and Love and Rockets, all rolled into one. Anyway, check out this swell cover for Drawn and Quarterly’s Free Comic Book Day comic book—Yow!, and anthology of John Stanley comics—and then click over to the FCBD site to read a preview, the epic story of that one time Tubby totally grew a real handlebar mustache over night.

God bless Michael Kupperman: Oh, and God, please let this be a new ongoing series from Kupperman…pretty please? (Via Flog!)

I may just be an easy mark for a silly high concept…: But this looks awesome. (Via Comics Worth Reading).

Attention Project: Rooftop: Please design Luke Cage some new threads. Marvel’s got the poor guy running around fighting crime half-naked these days, apparently. He wouldn’t even be able to get service in a convenient store dressed like that.

Huzzah!: I’ve been rather irritated with the fluctuating page counts on DC’s main Blackest Night series, as I miserishly refuse to buy 22-page comics for $3.99, and BN would sometimes skirt awfully close to the 22-page mark. So I’m heartened to see that the final issue will feature ten extra pages for $3.99. I’ll have to break out my calculator and back issues to count pages and do some arithmitec to make sure it all adds up to about 13.5-cents a page (the average cost of a page in a 22-page, $2.99 comic book), but ten extra pages sure beats no extra pages.

Amazing Spider-Man #623: Based on the “Villain Variant” of this issue, I would have guessed that this part of “The Gauntlet” storyline was introducing a new Spider-Man villain called The Lobster…

…but apparently that’s the new Vulture…? Mark Waid and Tom Peyer write this ish, Paul Azaceta pencils it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #33: Brad Meltzer, Georges Jeanty and Andy Owens continue their “Twilight” arc of Buffy’s never-ending eighth season-as-a-monthly-comic-series, this issue “setting the stage for Twilight’s unmasking in Buffy #34!” Who is this mysterious adversary? I don’t know, but his identity is so shocking that just a glimpse of the back of his head is causing Buffy, Willow and Xander to completely freak out on the cover!

What’s that? You’re trade-waiting the series? Well then Dark Horse has some new Buffy for you this week too, in the form of the $16, 170-page Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 6: Retreat. Previews of each here and here.

(more…)

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“I think ‘Space Cadet’ is really talking about how under it all, everyone’s kind of going through the same stuff…without getting too sappy or new age-y though”: DJ/cartoonist Kid Koala talks to Spinner about his sophomore graphic novel.

Garry Trudeau has been doing Doonesbury for a very long time now: “Garry Trudeau to release 40th-anniversary retrospective”

Head of the table: The Hooded Utilitarian blog wraps up its roundtable on Ariel Schrag’s Likewise by having Schrag herself weigh in. You can read the whole thing here.

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve covered Covered: Check out artist Robt Seda-Schreiber’s idiosyncratic take on John Romita’s cover for Amazing Spider-Man #122, and Steve LeCouilliard’s cartoonification of Marck Schultz’s Xenozoic Tales #13 cover.

“As in, ‘I’m strong as a mothersquiggle,’ and ‘I’m standing up to your bullsquiggle’”: That’s Christopher Allen talking about the way swear words are handled in the Milestone Universe, in his review of Milestone Forever #1. I think I like seeing the word “squiggle” spelled out like that even more than the little black squiggly line the Milestone books used to conceal swear words. Kind of like how in Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, the animals used the verb “cuss” whenever they were cussing…? Man, I thought that was brilliant…

“It’s not alarmist to state that we have now entered the realm of prosecuting people for thought crimes”: Charles Brownstein, Carl Horn and Jason Thompson on the Christopher Handley case. (Via The Beat)

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I can’t wait to get a look at this: Here are some details on IDW’s upcoming comics adaption of Peter S. Beagle’s fantasy novel The Last Unicorn, which was the basis of one of Young Caleb’s favorite childhood movie-going experiences.

I hope they’re better than the Anita Blake comics: Here’s Heidi MacDonald on Charlaine Harris, the author whose popular novels about Sookie Stackhouse was the basis for the True Blood television series, joining Dynamite in a comics-making endeavor. All successful prose authors are currently required by law to sign some sort of licensing agreement with comics companies to produce comics based on their work.

I would have guessed some sort of moonshine: The contents of Drinky Crow’s dook-dook-dook jug….revealed! (Via Flog!)

“It’s a little-known real-world scientific fact that massively traumatic injuries actually leave you stronger and more physically capable than you were before!”: Writing for Comics Alliance, Chris Sims counts down the “The Six Realest Moments in ‘Kick-Ass,’” the comic that writer Mark Millar recently told The Independent was the first superhero comic set in the real world.

Now I really want to see Mindless Ones in a live-action movie: Tom Spurgeon lists 21 things he likes about Dr. Strange, in honor of Ur-comics blogger Neilalien’s tenth blogiversarry. (Tenth!)

Uncle Traveling Matt’s mustache still freaks me out after all these years: Check out Jeffrey Brown’s cover for Archaia’s upcoming Fraggle Rock comic on MTV’s Splash Page.

Well for God’s sake, don’t wait another 20 years to do it again!: Check out this picture of Spider-Man, drawn by an artist who is hopefully currently on the phone talking to Stephen Wacker, who called to ask him to draw an Amazing Spider-Man arc.

I thought it would be smaller: “World’s First Commercial Jetpack To Be Sold For $75,000″

“Unfortunately, being a woman in society means that sometimes you have to sort of quell what is instinctually broad and magnificent and magical about you”: Wait, women are magic? Aha, I knew it! That explains so much! Er, anyway, here’s Gina Torres talking to Wired about playing Superwoman in the latest direct-to-DVD DC cartoon. Speaking of Wired, here are the comics their website’s readers consider “Must-Read;” it’s very superhero-heavy, and just about everything on it has either been made into a movie or is being made into a movie (or TV show).

This may not be a popular opinion, but…: After reading Blackest Night: The Flash and Flash: Rebirth in the same afternoon, I’ve realized that Barry Allen looks much better in blue than he does in red.

Your favorite CB runs Lead Pipe Entertainment, a production company that is working on projects for Disney, PopCult and other luminaries. In addition to creating content via comics, books and movies, Lead Pipe is launching a new YouTube channel with original videos. It will feature reality and sketch comedy shows run in 7 – 10 episode seasons.

First up is Drunk Counter Drunk, a debate show hosted by Super Frat creator Tony DiGerolamo. As each episode progresses the guests continue to drink and defend their positions on a variety of topics, including such hotbeds as The Iraq War and Net Neutrality.

Debuting soon after that will be Lunch Hour, featuring yours truly and Ben Meares as a pair of temp workers who comment on pop culture and current events during their lunch breaks.

The immediacy of the web is very rewarding in many aspects. The challenge of creating content that is entertaining in bite sized chunks has proven formidable, but we’re excited about the result. We hope you will be too.

Please subscribe to Lead Pipe’s YouTube channel for updates: http://www.youtube.com/leadpipeent

Christian Beranek is a writer, producer, actor and musician. Beranek is working with Disney on several projects and is also co-starring in an upcoming feature for Lakeshore Entertainment and PDFlo Films. He is never late for dinner and invites you to add him on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/beranek

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

“Ignorance is excusable—contempt of science is not excusable”: I enjoyed this Telegraph article about Sidney Perkotiz addressing the American Association for the Advancement of Science regarding superhero movies—each superhero should only be allowed on “major willing suspension of disbelief,” which translates into one power per hero. Maybe that’s why they’re having such a hard time making Superman and Wonder Woman movies…

Now do the rest of the book!: Richard Sala draws the mad tea party from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Via Flog!)

Huh, I could have sworn zombies have already fought everything by now: But I was wrong.

Does Batman torture?: Let’s ask Kevin Church.

Sometimes I read Dame Darcy interviews just for the pictures: Too few comics creators are ever photographed dancing with sharks and/or wearing awesome dresses, you know?

“That’s a kinder interpretation; it only suggests that Millar is asking his audience to hold themselves in contempt”: Douglas Wolk discusses some of the awkward social politics of Mark Millar’s script and the many virtues of John Romita Jr.’s art in Kick-Ass (the comic book). I’m kind of curious to see if the film tones down the gay-panic and weird racial politics on display in the comics.

I didn’t even know there was a Purple Girl: But apparently there is…and no one likes her (I kinda like her hair, though

Avengers: The Initiative #33: Big week for Siege-ry at Marvel! In Christos Gage and Jorge Molina’s Initiative, half the cast joins the Dark Avengers to attack Asgard while the other half attack Camp H.A.M.M.E.R., and Marjorie Liu, Daniel Way and Guiseppe Camuncoli continue their story of Daken in Asgard in their Dark Wolverine #83. Meanwhile, Siege mastermind Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stuart Immonen pit the New Avengers against The Hood and his gang (What, again?!) in New Avengers #62, Kieron Gillen and Billy Tan check in with Asgard’s hometown hero in Thor #607 and, finally, Jeff Parker and Miguel Angel Sepulveda send the T-Bolts into Asgard in Thunderbolts #141.

Batman: King Tut’s Tomb: Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir provided a perfectly decent script for the three-issue Batman Confidential story arc collected within (in which a skinnier, scarier version of the live-action TV show villain makes his comics debut), but it’s Jose Luís García-López’s gorgeous pencil art, inked by the great Kevin Nowlan, that makes this a Batman story worth sitting up and paying attention to. To help fill out the 130-page, $15 trade, DC’s also including two issues of The Brave and the Bold and an issue of Batman, all featuring García-López drawing the Dark Knight in the early ‘80s.

Blackest Night #7: Oh hey, Blackest Night is just about over now, isn’t it? Seems like it’s been going on forever now, and that it was always going to be going on, but here we are at the penultimate chapter. It’s a $4 book, but should be oversized. Two other Blackest Night tie-ins hit shops this week as well. James Robinson, Eddy Barrows and Nei Ruffino finish up their three issue Blackest Night: JSA series, and J.T. Krul and Will Conrad’s Green Arrow #30 is a $4, over-sized look at what Black Lantern Green Arrow was up to between the panels in the main Blackest Night series.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam #13: You can’t tell from the cover, which is by Byron Vaughns, but this is Mike Norton’s debut issue as the new artist on the all-ages series. Norton seems to have re-calibrated his art a bit for the new book, and it looks pretty great. I’m definitely eager to see what he brings to the creative team hiccup plagued book.

Classic G.I. Joe Vol. 7: The latest of IDW’s big, fat trades repackaging Marvel’s original, Larry Hama-scripted G.I. Joe comics run is a $25, 230-page trade including #61-#70. My inner eight-year-old sincerely thanks IDW, and hopes they continue collecting these…it saves my outer thirty-three-year old a lot of time looking through back issue boxes.

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