To coincide with the release of the Hatter M trade paperback — it collects miniseries published in 2005 by Image Comics — Automatic Pictures has launched a web series that picks up some time after the end of the first story.

If you’re unfamiliar with Hatter M, it’s comic-book a spin-off of Frank Beddor’s novel The Looking Glass War, which asserts that Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass were lies. Hatter M focused on Hatter Madigan, a bodyguard who’s forced to flee to the real world with Alyss Heart (aka Alice Liddell), princess of Wonderland.

The webisodes are by Beddor, Hatter M co-writer Liz Cavalier and new artist Tyson Schroeder (Ben Templesmith illustrated the miniseries).

Sean Kleefeld reviews the first installment of the web series as well and the trade paperback.

Writer Neil Gaiman, whose new children’s book The Graveyard Book is doing quite well, recently spoke with MTV’s Splash Page about his upcoming “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader” two-parter that’s due early next year:

– 20 things Every Superhero Comic Collection Needs.

– Laura Hudson talks to Brian Azzarello about his upcoming Joker graphic novel.

– Seth is curating a series of films from the National Film Board of Canada. Drawn! has the details.

– The Mindless Ones look at the work of ero-guru artist Suehiro Maruo (note: some images are probably NSFW).

– Peter Sanderson looks at the new edition of Patrick Rosenkranz’s seminal history of underground comix, Rebel Visions.

– Fantasy.fr has an interview with Devilman creator and manga-ka Go Nagai.

– Judith Rosen checks out the Comics and Classics store in Jacksonville Beach, Fla.

– Craig Fischer has a short interview with alt-cartoonist Ben Towle.

– Evie Nagy looks at all the political comics coming out this month.

– Ooooo, I’m a Johnny Storm!

– Noah Berlatsky did not like David Heatley’s new book. Like, at all.

With slightly more than two weeks to go, publishers are ramping up their Halloween-themed releases, from superheroes battling the supernatural to a boy dreaming of becoming a vampire.

Shadowline kicks off its Silverline all-ages imprint with Dear Dracula just as The Hulk slugs it out with Frankenstein’s monster, and Superman and Batman team up to tackle vampires and werewolves. Plus, there’s a Hack/Slash special, and another installment of Ben Templesmith’s Welcome to Hoxford.

If pre-Halloween chills aren’t for you, there’s always the second issue of Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, Art Spiegelman’s Breakdowns, or the third issue of Jeff Smith’s Rasl.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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– Tom Spurgeon interviews Bill Schelly, who’s new biography of Joe Kubert, Man of Rock, should be out in stores any day now.

– In more depressing newspaper news: Acclaimed editorial cartoonist Chip Bok is taking a buyout and leaving The Akron Beacon-Journal. The number of full-time, on-staff cartoonists at daily papers gets smaller and smaller. Of course, so does the number of editors, reporters, photographers …

– On the BBC, they’re talking about comics.

– The Daily Cross Hatch begins a multi-part interview with Art Spiegelman.

– Go! Comi are so excited about their new 07-GHOST series that they’ve set up a whole Web site for it.

– Cool things to bookmark: Elizabeth Conley, Elena Diaz, Pancha Diaz, Andrew Farago, Shaenon Garrity, Konstantin Pogorelov, Jason Thompson, and Leia Weathington have formed a new group blog, titled The Couscous Collective.

– Steven De Souza, who wrote the screenplay for the 1987 Spirit TV-movie (remember that?) offers his thoughts on the upcoming Frank Miller film.

ABC is delving back into the world of ’80s television, resurrecting the alien-invasion franchise V.

Variety reports that Warner Bros. Television is producing the miniseries, written by The 4400 co-creator Scott Peters. Jace Hall, former head of WB’s video-game division, will executive produce, with an eye toward expanding V into other media.

The original miniseries, which debuted in May 1983 on NBC, served as an allegory for Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, as an alien fleet arrived on Earth. Referred to as the Visitors, the aliens offered friendship and advanced technology in exchange for chemicals to help their ailing homeworld. Their plan turns out to be somewhat less peaceful, and the human-looking Visitors turn out to be rat-eating reptillian beings in disguise.

That miniseries spawned a second, plus a TV spinoff, books and an 18-issue comic series from DC.

Peters told Variety he won’t duplicate the original concept, except that the new V will focus on what happens when the public has blind faith in its leaders.

No word yet whether we’ll see a return of Marc Singer.

Goof Button presents some great Whitney Darrow Jr. cartoons from the book Sex and the Single Child by one Sam Levenson.

• Invincible Iron Man writer Matt Fraction contrasts the love lives of Tony Stark and … Captain America? “… I would love to write a story about Tony Stark’s complicated love life. It’s an aspect of his character, that’s for sure. [It's like] in the movie, when he goes to bed with the angry reporter from Berkeley; you can imagine that same reporter with a similar line of questioning with Captain America, but you can’t imagine Captain America seducing her later. But with Tony, you can, so we should absolutely take advantage of it.” [The Washington Post]

• Cartoonist Bill Griffith discusses Zippy the Pinhead as a cottage industry, and the financial impact of his website: “Over the years, income from the Zippy website has gone from about a third of my annual income to about a half — in other words, the website has doubled my income. Most of my Web income is from sales of Zippy originals — the original artwork of the daily strips — as well as signed prints of strips and original art from my underground days.” [The Hartford Courant]

• Ignatz nominee MK Reed talks about the collaboration process: “It’s been very different from working on my own, and there was definitely a learning curve figuring out how Jonathan [Hill] was most likely to work out different parts. I’ve been working with him for over a year now, so we’ve kind of gotten things together by this point, and there’s a lot less arguing about how certain things should look or what needs to be corrected. Jonathan is insanely talented and I know he car handle pretty much anything I throw at him. Because he’s a more talented artist than I am, I can actually make up completely crazy detailed things like crowd scenes in a supermarket, and know they’ll look awesome.” [New York Daily News]

• Alex Irvine, author of The Vertigo Encyclopedia, considers the influence of the DC Comics imprint: “… I think it’s probably safe to say that the success of Vertigo had a lot to do with DC and Marvel being willing to take their regular universe books in more mature directions. Also, the Sandman phenomenon brought so much attention to comics in general that it created a huge new appetite for comics with a certain kind of attitude. This in turn meant that people who had worked primarily in indie and underground comics — David Lapham comes to mind, or Paul Pope — had a chance to put their work in front of new audiences.” [Omnivoracious]

• Ben Templesmith is working on a book about the Presidents of the United States … the actual presidents, not the 1990s novelty band of the same name. (My apologies to anyone who has “Lump” stuck in their head as a result of the previous sentence).

“A portrait each, plus some facts,” Templesmith says about the format of the book. “Especially about some of the lesser known ones. Damn some were sick/quirky/weird bastards.” Yep, those are our presidents, God bless’em.

• Tickets for the 2009 New York Comic Con are now available.

• Peter David has been banned from prisons. Which I guess sounds a lot better than it is.

• Dean Haspiel provided the cover art for novelist Tim Hall’s Full of It.

• You can read Paul Cornell’s entire short story “Catherine Drewe” here.

• Robert Kirkman vs. Brian Bendis, the video.

• And finally, Jeffrey Brown predicts the future.

A couple of weeks ago, we were chatting about Star Trek comic books. As noted earlier, I am awfully fond of certain DC and Marvel journeys through the Trek universe. It occurred to me that I had not read any of the more recent IDW stuff. To correct that glaring oversight, I picked up IDW’s trade paperback Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Space Between.

This TPB collects all six issues of the The Space Between miniseries.

When evaluating Trek comics, I look for three primary elements to guide me:

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With the release later this month of The Graveyard Book, and an appearance this weekend at the National Book Festival, author and comics writer Neil Gaiman is making the interview rounds.

The Washington Post has the transcript from Wednesday’s online chat in which Gaiman answered questions ranging from his upcoming projects to the future of his blog to an unanswered 20-year-old question from The Sandman #1:

Takoma Park, Md: Did we ever find out what made Dream so weak that he could be captured in Sandman No. 1? If no, when do we find out? Thanks!

Neil Gaiman: We never did. I was hoping to tell that story in a book DC Comics would publish this year, for Sandman’s Twentieth Anniversary (20! Years! Unimaginable!) but we weren’t able to come to an agreement. Maybe for Sandman’s thirtieth anniversary…?

In the meantime, I’m writing the last Batman story for DC, for Andy Kubert to draw. I’ve seen the first eleven pages of pencils and they are things of beauty that make me feel guilty for having written words that will, when lettered, cover bits of the artwork up.

Elsewhere, at Goodreads, Gaiman reveals that he doesn’t plan to tackle anything of The Sandman’s scope again:

It definitely didn’t leave me thinking, “I need to write more giant things.” Depending on how long I get to live, I will probably get to do another two, maybe even three, more American Gods books, and they are all great, big things, 500 to 600-page books, so it will probably be that length. But I can’t imagine doing anything that takes up my life and my headspace in the same way that Sandman did. There were times when what was going on in Sandman was much more real to me than anything that was going on in the world outside, just because I was spending more time with these characters.

DC Comics has confirmed a report that it will shut down its Minx imprint of graphic novels aimed at teen girls in January.

“Minx was an experimental imprint for DC Comics and we are extremely proud of the books we published and the stories we told during the past two years,” the publisher said in a statement released this morning. “We thank all of the writers and artists who lent their talents to our endeavor and especially thank readers who came along for the ride. DC Comics remains committed to publishing diverse material for diverse audiences as we continue to welcome new readers.”

According to Comic Book Resources, some solicited and otherwise approved books will be published, while others won’t — at least not as part of the imprint.

Announced in November 2007 and launched the following spring with much fanfare and an impressive — by comic-book standards, at least — marketing budget, Minx targeted the growing young-adult demographic in the book market.

Headed by Vertigo’s Shelly Bond and Karen Berger, the line debuted with The PLAIN Janes, by popular YA novelist Cecil Castellucci and Street Angel artist Jim Rugg. They also recruited the likes of Andi Watson, Derek Kirk Kim, Rebecca Donner, Brian Wood, Aaron Alexovich, Alisa Kwitney, Ross Campbell and Mike Carey.

Despite the $250,000 marketing budget, assistance from Alloy Marketing + Media — the company that promoted The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Gossip Girl – mainstream-media coverage, and a mix of talent familiar to readers in both the comics and the YA book markets, Minx didn’t seem to find its audience. (That, of course, is a familiar refrain.) CBR reports that Random House, DC’s book-trade distributor, apparently hasn’t been able to place the Minx books in the YA sections of chain stores, which would seem essential when marketing a graphic novels written by the authors of The Queen of Cool and Boy Proof and Flirting in Cars.

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It’s a good week for fans of classic comics as publishers roll out collections ranging from Nemesis Archives, Vol. 1, and Showcase Presents: Metal Men, Vol. 2, to Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: The Barks/Rosa Collection, Vol. 3, and The Complete Terry and the Pirates, Vol. 4.

Looking for something a little more recent? Then try the Absolute edition of Frank Miller’s Ronin, the premiere hardcover of Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones’ Marvel Boy miniseries, or the special edition of Dan Clowes’ Ghost World.

But if single issues are more your thing, there’s a new Solomon Kane series, the end of The Ultimates 3, the introduction of Lady Bullseye in Daredevil, and the finale of the Atlas story arc in Superman.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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In honor of Saturday’s National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., The Washington Post will play host tomorrow to an online chat with author and comics writer Neil Gaiman.

The newspaper is inviting readers to submit questions any time before or during the chat, which will take place beginning at noon Eastern.

Gaiman and Brad Meltzer will be among the nearly 70 authors participating in Saturday’s event on the National Mall.

Over on his blog, Peter David has put out the call for fan input. He is crafting the second volume of Writing for Comics with Peter David to be published by Impact Books. He’s asking for your questions:

I am looking to include a new chapter that will essentially be Q&A from the fans. If you read the first edition and you were left with a question or questions about writing for comics, now is the time to ask them.

He’s accepting submissions until October 20.

Peter David is the creator of Fallen Angel and currently writes Marvel’s X-Factor, She-Hulk, and Dark Tower. Frequent visitors to David’s blog are familiar with the terrific Q&As he hosts there.

I first heard of Matthew Wayne Selznick last July when he was interviewed on J.C. Hutchins’ UltraCreatives podcast. MWZ is a conventional and podcast novelist who narrated his book Brave Men Run.

The story is set in “the Sovereign Era, an alternate history where the sudden appearance of people with remarkable physical and psychical powers promises to change the course of human destiny.” The tale begins in 1985 in a world very similar to our own — until the world learns that those with super powers live among us.

At the center of Brave Men Run is Nick Charters, a teenager a lot more interested in hanging with his new girlfriend than in dealing with his unusual abilities and the mystery of how he came to have them. Think Breakfast Club meets Spider-Man.

The podcast novel, which is how I experienced the story, is a lot of fun. Selznick does an expert job managing the narration. His characters are interesting and smart. He keenly captures the flavor of ’80s angst, fanning Cold War flames with the addition of real super powers.

It’s a great story and I want more. So get to writin’ on that sequel, Mr. Selznick!

The print incarnation of Brave Men Run is available from Swarm Press.

Last week I talked about trimming the fat on my collection. A reader commented that binding my floppies, like how libraries manage their periodicals, is a good way to store one’s collection. Sweet fancy Moses, I can’t believe I never considered this before!

I have a number of books that I want to read again and again that will NEVER be collected in the trades. Such as comics from now closed publishers. All of Jim Shooter’s Defiant Comics, for instance. Bound in hardbacks they can live on the shelf with my other trades and be more available for reading.

Sweet!

There are a number of sites that offer the service. Daniel Banks has a great site with lots of pictures. Library Binding has the details and a bit more info on prices.

I am totally doing this. Thanks for the tip!

No spoilers follow, ‘cuz that’s just how I roll.

I finished the unabridged audio recording of Brad Meltzer’s The Book of Lies today. As I mentioned last week, narrator Scott Brick has a tremendous talent and he brings it fully to bear here. His style is fantastic, his characterizations spot on. Through the approximately eleven-and-a-half hours of story, Brick’s efforts support an environment where the characters become tangible.

You get to know them.

Brick brought his A-game here. I have not one single complaint about his work on BoL. Only praise.

Meltzer’s story posits a connection between the murder of Superman creator Jerry Siegel’s father and Cain’s murder of Abel in the Bible. I have to say going into this, I thought the whole premise was a bit absurd. But wow. Does i