– Take a gander at the cover to the next volume of Acme Novelty Library.

– Man, I hope this isn’t a true story.

– The first volume of Bizenghast is available for free online.

– Van Jensen looks at Gary Phillips’ new High Rollers series.

– Sean Collins has been posting the excellent interviews he did with folks like Nick Bertozzi for Wizard up onto his blog.

– Kai-Ming Cha looks at the ultra-violent Gantz series.

– Brian K. Vaughan talks about New York City and Ex Machina.

– Jennifer de Guzman looks at the issue of creators’ rights.

– Black Voices counts down their top 25 black superheroes.

– Scott Kurtz has made up LOLBAT T-shirts.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

Also coming out of the State of the industry panel at HeroesCon, Van Jensen at ComicMix reports that Mark Waid revealed John Byrne will write the previously announced Farscape comic for BOOM!

I put a question mark in the headline because of the way Jensen phrased it in his report:

Mark Waid, with an elbow from Larsen, revealed that John Byrne will be writing the Farscape book for Boom! Studios.

I’m wondering if the elbow from Larsen means that maybe Waid was kidding? And if he wasn’t, does this means Mark Waid is unbanned from the Byrne Forum?

Update: Check our comments section … Mark Waid confirms it was indeed a joke.

If you’re in L.A., BOOM! Studios is sponsoring an event with Brendan Hay, writer of their upcoming comic Scream Queen, at Meltdown Comics June 4. And free beer. More details after the jump …

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Congrats to former comics journalist/blogger Ian Brill, who has joined BOOM! Studios, according to a press release sent out by the company today:

BOOM! Studios announced today the appointment of Ian Brill to the role of Games Workshop Editor. Bringing heavy experience in writing and editing, Mr. Brill will helm BOOM!’s Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and Blood Bowl line of comics while providing steady leadership and unique insight to the expanding BOOM! catalog as the company continues its explosive growth.

“Ian has an unparalleled devotion for comics that makes him ideal to work at BOOM!,” said Ross Richie, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “Coming from comic book journalism, Ian has a unique vantage point that has allowed him to see every part of the comic business, and this, hands down, makes him one of the best-suited people in the industry today to make the jump to an editorial position.”

“I’m thrilled to see what ideas Ian will bring to the table,” said Mark Waid, BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief. “BOOM! continues to bring in top talent with various backgrounds, which gives us a cutting edge in what used to be a two-company market.”

Ian Brill started working on the other side of the comics business, writing article after article for The Comics Journal, Publishers Weekly and Newsarama. A graduate of San Francisco State University with a B.A. in English Literature, Brill is no stranger to writing and editing. Mr. Brill now takes his love of comics to BOOM! where he will oversee the bestselling Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and Blood Bowl line of comic books, licensed from Games Workshop.

Now I get the move to L.A. …

BOOM! Studios and a great line-up of creators are putting together a benefit book for artist Josh Medors, who has cancer. Pulp Tales Benefit Book is due in September and can be pre-ordered on the BOOM! site now:

PULP TALES BENEFIT BOOK FOR JOSH MEDORS

Contributions by Steve Niles, Josh Fialkov, Kody Chamberlain, Tony Fleecs, Dan Taylor and more!
Cover by Ben Templesmith and Josh Medors
24pgs, FC SRP: $3.99

Help BOOM! Studios support comic book artist Josh Medors, recently diagnosed with cancer, by ordering the benefit comic book PULP TALES. This two-fisted one-shot features all-new, action-packed stories by horror master Steve Niles, P.U.N.K.S’ Josh Fialkov and Kody Chamberlain, ’76’s B. Clay Moore & Seth Peck, Capote in Kansas’ Chris Samnee, In My Lifetime’s Tony Fleecs, and more! Featuring a cover by Ben Templesmith! ALL PROCEEDS will go to Josh Medors and his family!

All proceeds will go to Josh and his family, and BOOM! is hoping to have the book available in San Diego as well.

– Cool blog to check out: The Mindless Ones.

– BOOM! needs interns.

– Man, I wouldn’t mind sporting one of these.

– Feiffer’s Explainers explained.

– I thought Chip Kidd was designing those Vertical Black Jack books. Apparently I was wrong.

– Doug Wolk reports on Stumptown.

Mekhi Phifer’s Facilitator Films will produce the big screen adaptation of BOOM!’s Hunter’s Moon, a miniseries written by screenwriter James L. White. Phifer will also play the lead role in the film, while White is in final negotiations to write the movie script, his first since Ray.

Per the Hollywood Reporter:

Phifer (NBC’s “ER”) will play a stockbroker who takes his son on a weekend hunting trip in the woods. The teen is kidnapped, forcing the father to do the criminals’ bidding to save the boy’s life.

Boom co-founders Andrew Cosby and Ross Richie will produce under their Boom Entertainment banner with Phifer and his Facilitator partner Ronnie Warner.

White (who co-owns the project with Boom) published “Moon” as a five-part comic series last year and released it in novel form this month via the Boom label.

BOOM! Studios sent over some preview pages of a couple of books they have coming out in June … first, High Rollers:

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At the New York Comic Con, BOOM! Studios announced they’ll bring the SciFi Channel series Farscape back to comics. No creative team was announced, but the timing couldn’t be better, what with new webisodes being produced for SciFi.com.

The previous comic adaptation was done by Wildstorm back in 2002 when the show was still on the air, and, if I’m remembering right, was written by Marv Wolfman. The show ran for four seasons on the Sci Fi Channel, followed by a two-part mini-series that wrapped up some of the dangling plot threads. The show featured a great set of characters, some human, some produced by the geniuses at the Jim Henson Company … my favorite episodes are still the ones where John Crichton and his crew went back to Earth.

Read the complete press release after the jump …

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– Despite what the DC solicitations for July say, Catwoman #81 isn’t the last issue of the series … #82 is.

– Egyptian police seized copies of the graphic novel Metro by Magdy al-Shafei; the publisher had already been jailed.

– Oh that naughty Shinchan!

– Trevor Soponis profiles Big Head Press.

– Todd Allen looks at Boom! Studios’ successes with MySpace.

– R.I.P. Ollie Johnston.

– The late shipping hall of fame. Up for nomination: Camelot 3000, Planetary and All-Star Batman & Robin, among others.

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Davis Entertainment, which helped to bring I, Robot and Eragon to the big screen, has acquired the rights to North Wind, BOOM! Studios’ post-apocalyptic miniseries.

David DiGilio, who wrote the five-issue series, will pen the adaptation and serve as executive producer. John Davis and BOOM! co-founders Andrew Cosby and Ross Richie will produce through their BOOM! Entertainment.

North Wind is set in a futuristic Los Angeles years after global warming has triggered a new ice age.

BOOM! caused a stir with the series in January when it began simultaneously releasing issues in comics shops and for free on MySpace.

Following up on their panel last night at WonderCon, the folks at BOOM! sent me a four-page preview of Shmobots, their slacker-robot comedy. Here’s how they describe the book on their website:

SMALL SOLDIERS and MOUSEHUNT screenwriter and DETROIT ROCK CITY director, Adam Rifkin, pairs with pin-up artist supreme Les Toil to create Shmobots! In an world where man needs robots to do menial labor, a city decides to contract with the lowest bidder in order to create its army workforce. But the whole thing backfires and the robots end up being lazy and stupid — with attitude. So what do you call these slacker robots? They’re a bunch of Shmobots! A darkly funny tale of passion, romance, and sexy-time! Once you go chrome, you never go home!

And what do slacker robots do? Watch The Kitten Channel, of course … check it out after the jump:

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This post is mainly for my wife, who loves Kim Krizan’s movies … Johanna Draper Carlson has an interview up with Krizan, who wrote the movies Before Sunset and Before Sunrise. She has a story in BOOM!’s upcoming Zombie Tales anthology:

How have you changed your style and/or process for comics?

It felt to me that in writing a comic my process became wild, fast, and sharp — while in a script or book I would be slow, laborious, and careful. The medium did seem to dictate another approach, and it was fun to write. Both film scripts and comic scripts are written for visual media, but I had to consider the importance of things like the turning of a page as an opportunity to add tension. I very easily and naturally put in violent imagery which was rather satisfying. Chip read it and said, “Wow, this gives me the creeps!” and said I was good with horror. Well, I don’t watch horror films. Driving in LA is enough horror for me.

Continuing our 2008-oriented top ten lists, here are the top ten “middle-brow” comics we’re looking forward to this year. I can’t decide if I love or hate the term “middle-brow,” but it’s the closest thing I can think of to describe indie adventure comics right now.

1. RASL (Cartoon Books): Jeff Smith has already set the bar pretty high for himself with his epic Bone and the delightful Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil. But after seeing the preview of RASL from San Diego , I don’t think we have anything to worry about. My only dilemma now is deciding if I’m buying the regular-sized comic or waiting for the oversized collections. — JK Parkin

2. Tiempos Finales 2 (Sam Hiti): The first volume of Tiempos Finales was an amazing, luxurious bit of storytelling. It also left some unanswered questions that I’ve been dying to learn the answers to. Sam Hiti’s announcement that he was continuing the story this year was the best piece of news I heard in 2007. — Michael May

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I’ve only gotten a few more responses from retailers on the BOOM!/MySpace promo I posted about on Friday, one via email and two in the comments section of my original post.

You can read the response from Collector’s Paradise here and from Gary’s Comics here.

I’ve included the email response after the jump, from Marcus King of Titan Games & Music in Battle Creek, Mich., who ordered the book after he heard about the MySpace promotion. Thanks again to all the retailers who took the time to respond.

The main site posted the latest BOOM! press release this morning, on a second printing of North Wind #1. This was my favorite part:

… Said Mike Malve, owner of the Atomic Comics chain, a chain that includes four retail stores, including a mobile store housed in a van, all located in and around the greater Phoenix, Arizona area.

After reading that, I got this picture in my head of the comics van driving down the street like the ice cream man, with the Spider-Man theme music playing and a bunch of kids running after it.

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As I mentioned earlier today, I emailed about 20 retailers and asked them some questions about BOOM!’s promotion with MySpace, where BOOM!’s North Wind #1 was made available for free the day it hit comic shops. Subsequent issues will also appear on MySpace on the same day they’re released in shops. I spoke with Chip Mosher, BOOM!’s sales and marketing guy, yesterday about the promotion. BOOM! also announced today that the book has sold out from the distributor.

So that brings us up to speed. So far I’ve heard from five retailers, whose comments you can find after the jump. I also touched base with Larry Young, AiT/Planet Lar publisher, to get his thoughts on a similar tactic they tried out with the graphic novel Continuity a couple of years ago.

I’d like to thank all the retailers and Larry Young for taking the time to respond. If you are a retailer with thoughts on the promotion and I haven’t contacted you or you haven’t had time to respond, drop me an email. If I have enough material, I will follow up with a second collection of responses early next week.

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BOOM! Studios sent out a press release today saying that North Wind #1, the book BOOM! put up on MySpace for free and that I talked to BOOM! marketing guy Chip Mosher about yesterday, has sold out at Diamond. They’re currently deciding if they’re going to do a second printing. You can check out the full release after the jump.

I’m currently gathering thoughts from various retailers on the MySpace promotion and hope to publish a “retailer round-up” post later today. If you are a retailer with thoughts on the promotion and I haven’t contacted you, drop me an email and I’ll send you a few questions to answer. I’ll publish what I have a little later today and will follow up with a “part 2″ early next week.

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Last Wednesday BOOM! Studios released the first issue of North Wind by David DiGilio and Alex Cal, both in comic shops and for free at MySpace Comic Books. Chip Mosher, marketing and sales director for BOOM!, answered some questions I had about the MySpace promotion.

JK: If you could, walk me through the events that led to North Wind being put up on MySpace. Did they contact you, or did you contact them?

Chip: Sam Humphries, the man that is behind MySpace Comic Books, is a long-time friend. Before I was at BOOM! and was just one of their published writers, I did the deal with Sam to put a preview of the first issue of my comic, Left on Mission, on MySpace last May. Since I came over to BOOM! full time, we had been talking about what we could do together in 2008 and then suddenly, we find ourselves discussing different ideas at the BOOM! holiday party and there was creator David DiGilio at the party, and we just looked at each other and viola, that was that.

North Wind is just a great book. DiGilio really took to comics like a duck to water. Alex Cal the artist is going to be a superstar. It’s just such a great book, I really wanted to do something for it that stood out. As for the rationale behind the simultaneous release, well, there is tons of data out there showing that sales increase when you offer a product online for free. CrossGen had great success with this back in the day with their “Comics on the Web” initiative. The Heroes HC that DC just put out is all available online for free. I just saw some estimates of something like 26,000 copies sold — and this is on a book that costs $29.99 and all the material is available for free! And then there’s the bootlegging that is so rampant these days, and still overall sales of comics have still increased.

So regardless, people want to own this stuff. They want to hold it in their hands. They want to read it the car. They want to turn the pages. The physical artifact has value.

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BOOM! Studios is the latest comic company to team up with those crazy cats over at MySpace. Starting yesterday, the MySpace Comic Book community began offering BOOM!’s latest title, North Wind #1, for free on their site, with plans to offer the rest of the mini-series as well … every issue, in full, the day they are released, for free.

There’s also a trailer for the book up on MySpace:

NORTH WIND Trailer

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The press release BOOM! sent out describes the book as such:

Written by David DiGilio, best known for writing the film EIGHT BELOW and creating the ABC TV show TRAVELER, NORTH WIND is a five issue mini-series set in a future Los Angeles after a new ice age has covered the earth. NORTH WIND chronicles the rise of a new hero in a dystopian world where people burn books for fuel, and Skinrunners trade valuable pelts for rations and warmth. The first issue features a cover by Andrew Huerta with interior artwork by newcomer and soon to be fan-favorite, Alex Cal.