Although Adam Rifkin’s resume only includes one comic book so far — Shmobots — he’s written and/or directed many movies over the course of his career, including Detroit Rock City, Underdog, Look and Small Soldiers. This week I conducted an interview with Rifkin over email to find out more about his comics work, what he’s working on now and, of course, The Kitten Channel.

JK: So how did the Shmobots come about? Did you know Ross Richie and Andrew Cosby (BOOM! co-founders) before you pitched the series?

Adam: The idea for Shmobots came to me in a flash of thinking that it might be funny to see a group of pot smoking, slacker robots incompetently try to pick up a hooker. At first I considered writing it as a short film, but then I couldn’t help but feel that there was a bigger idea to explore. The bigger idea being that of a whole subculture of stupid, pot-smoking robots who don’t work, don’t contribute to society in any productive way, but have an offensive sense of entitlement. I grew up with a lot of kids like that, so I knew what there voices would sound like. I wondered what people might call this subculture of mechanical loser and thus, Shmobots was born.

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Back in April, comics retailer David Pirkola was shot during a robbery of his store, Apparitions Comics and Books in Grand Rapids, Mich. At the time, iFanboy.com put out the call for donated items they could auction off to help Pirkola with his rising medical bills.

The first of those auctions started over the weekend, for an original Warhammer 40,000 comic strip drawn by Clumsy and Little Things creator Jeffrey Brown.

According to a press release from BOOM! Studios, which publishes the Warhammer comics, Brown is one of Pirkola’s friends and is a big fan of Warhammer:

“I became a father a year and a half ago, so it’s been a while since I’ve had the time to field my Ultramarines force or let my epic scale ork gargants rampage across the battlefield,” said Brown. “I keep up with the comics, novels, and White Dwarf magazine, but spend more time playing with buses and trucks now. It was a great experience to work on this page and get back to the game that I love, and it was even better knowing I could help David by doing it.”

iFanboy will be adding other item from BOOM!, Image, Oni and more, so keep an eye on this page for more auction items.

You can check out two versions of Brown’s strip — one with an interview with the creator, one without — after the jump.

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– Deadpool smooching Bea Arthur is just kind of wrong. (Thanks, Rich!)

– Oh, for heaven’s sake.

– Ooo, I hope Miles Edgeworth puts in an appearance.

– Here’s a virtual symposium on Doug Wolk’s Reading Comics.

– Du9 talks with Dave Cooper.

– Sean Collins did a great interview with the Hernandez brothers for CBR.

– Remember, not every librarian is pro-comics.

– John Byrne shares some starship designs from his IDW Star Trek work.

– The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are celebrating 25 years with a contest.

– Barbie goes to Comic-Con.

– Jamie Coville conducted an in-depth interview with Mark Waid on BOOM! and his Spider-Man work. It’s also available as an MP3.

– The Forbidden Planet blog talks to La Muse creator Adi Tantimedh.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal has optioned 2 Guns, the BOOM! limited series written by Steven Grant with art by Mat Santolouco.

It’s the third time Ross Richie and Andrew Cosby, BOOM!’s co-founders, have teamed up with producer Marc Platt — the other two times being BOOM!’s Tag and Talent properties. According to the Reporter, the movie will be “a throwback to classic ’80s buddy cop movies in the vein of ‘Lethal Weapon’ and ’48 HRS.,’ but with a modern spin.”

For more details on the story, check out he BOOM! website, where the comic is being posted online for free.

What would Mark Waid do … or, more accurately, what should Mark Waid do?

At the BOOM! Studios panel on Friday at the San Diego Comic-Con, Waid said he wanted fan input on his next project for BOOM! Should he do superheroes, or something else?

So, what do you want to see from Waid? A western? Horror? Comedy? Something with giant robots fighting dinosaurs Or even original superheroes? Let’s hear your opinion in the comments section.

The creator of Farscape talks about writing “season five” in comics form for BOOM!:

If you’ve ever been to San Diego and you’ve walked around in the downtown area, then you’ve probably been asked if you wanted a pedicab ride. I think at least 30 of them asked if we needed a lift yesterday. If we were going to pay $30 to have one of them take us to the convention center, this is the one I would have taken.

Although Wednesday morning began with a flurry of movie options, the big news from Comic-Con International’s “Day 0″ came from comics publishers. And curiously, two of the announcements involved crime fiction.

DC Comics teased next summer’s launch of Vertigo Crime, a “subimprint” devoted to mystery and crime stories. The line, headed by Will Dennis, will debut with titles from 100 Bullets writer Brian Azzarello and Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin. More details are expected today.

Not to be outdone, IDW Publishing opened Preview Night with a press conference announcing that Darwyn Cooke (DC: The New Frontier) will adapt Richard Stark’s first four Parker novels as a series of graphic novels. The first title is expected in late 2009.

Going in a decidedly different direction, BOOM! Studios announced a deal for it to produce a line of comics and graphic novels based on Disney/Pixar and Muppet properties. The first title, a four-issue Incredibles series, will be written by Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid and debut next year. Cooke will provide the cover art.

Other convention-related announcements:

• Wildstorm has acquired the comics rights to Summit Entertainment’s upcoming action-thriller Push. The DC imprint will release a six-issue prequel, by Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman and Bruno Redondo, with covers by Jock.

• Cartoon Network will produce animated movies based on Phil Hester’s Firebreather and Mike Avon Oeming and Bryan Glass’ The Mice Templar, both from Image. The cable network also is adapting Chuck Dixon’s IDW title The Vanishers as a live-action film.

• Writer Ed Brubaker (Captain America, Criminal) has teamed with White Rock Lake Productions to produce Angel of Death, a live-action series for Crackle.com, Sony Picture Entertainment’s online-video network. The weekly crime/revenge series will debut next year.

• Warner Bros. will release a pair of downloadable Watchmen video games, with more installments possible.

• And that flurry of movie news? Warner Bros. snapped up the rights to Rob Liefeld’s forthcoming Capeshooters, for Bryan Singer to produce. Hancock director Peter Berg will develop Hercules: The Thracian Wars, based on the Radical Publishing miniseries. Jenna Dewan and Luke Goss will star in an adaptation of Top Cow’s The Magdalena. And Summit grabbed Virgin Comics’ one-shot The Leaves.

You can follow our complete Comic-Con coverage here.

Back in March, BOOM! Comics hired Matt Gagnon to oversee their upcoming Farscape comics. Per a press release sent out last week, Matt “was quickly promoted to managing editor, overseeing the production of all BOOM! titles,” reporting to their editor-in-chief, Mark Waid.

Matt spent four years as a buyer at Meltdown Comics, the 15-year-old large comic shop in L.A., before moving to BOOM! He’s no stranger to the publishing side of comics, as he was co-editor of the latest volume of the Meathaus comic anthology.

To see how the new job was going, I sent a few questions to Matt via email.

JK: You’re coming to BOOM! from the comics retailing world. What did you do for Meltdown Comics?

Matt: My title was Purchasing Manager, which means I did the ordering for our stores through Diamond, our mainstream distributors, and beyond. Gaston, the co-owner of Meltdown, besides being one of the best business men I’ve ever met, also became a good friend and mentor to me. We had a great short-hand between the two of us. I was also planning events – like Y:THE LAST PARTY – working the counter on Wednesday’s, flexing on thieves. You know, the usual.

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BOOM! Studios sent out another press release this afternoon — counting the “redacted” one they sent to Heidi, I think that makes four from them in two days, so they’ve been busy — about a new book called Remnant by actor Stephen Baldwin, Andrew Crosby, Caleb Monroe and artist Julian Totino Tedesco.

Yep, it’s that Stephen Baldwin, who you may remember from The Usual Suspects, Biodome, Half Baked, Young Riders and Celebrity Apprentice.

Per the press release:

BOOM! Studios is proud to announce THE REMNANT, a new project created by Stephen Baldwin with a story by Baldwin and EUREKA TV series creator Andrew Cosby. To celebrate this new series, BOOM! Studios will have available at its booth a special-edition preview book priced at five dollars during the upcoming Comicon San Diego later this month. Baldwin will also be signing at the BOOM! booth Friday the 25th and Saturday the 26th.

A supernatural thriller in the vein of 24, THE REMNANT will explore the fundamental questions of human life and our perception of reality.

“I wanted to do a comic that asked the big questions but answered them in little ways,” said Baldwin. “Philosophy and spirituality are complex beasts, but I believe literature’s purpose is to contextualize these tricky subjects into entertaining stories that speak, not preach, to the reader.”

I’m covering the BOOM! panel in San Diego, so I’ll be there to see what he says about the book.

BOOM! Studios sent out a release this afternoon announcing that movie make-up artist John Wrightson, son of comics legend Bernie Wrightson, would be turning fans who buy BOOM! T-shirts into zombies at their booth in San Diego this year.

John is currently working on the new Terminator film and the new Witch Mountain movie that features The Rock, so you should have plenty to talk to him about while he turns you into the undead.

Complete release after the jump …

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BOOM! Studios, who earlier this year offered each issue of North Wind on MySpace for free the day they were published, has added a webcomics area to their website that features several items from their backlist for free.

The titles they’re offering include Ninja Tales, Zombie Tales, Hero Squared, 2 Guns, Shmobots and Cthulhu Tales.

“This is a great way to get the word out about BOOM! titles,” said Chip Mosher in a press release. “When people come to the site for free comics, they’ll be able to take a look at the other quality books we’re putting out. The interface ties all the parts of our website – the store, current titles, free stuff – into one beautiful package. New fans who might be stopping by for cool zombie or Cthulhu content can get turned on to what BOOM!’s doing across the board and check out the print editions in local comic book shops or at Amazon.com and mass market bookstores via our distribution deal with Perseus Books. We expect that people who aren’t BOOM! fans will discover our series and titles and be excited to own print copies.”

Some retailers reacted negatively to the North Wind posting on MySpace, as noted here. This initiative doesn’t appear to feature new material, but rather stuff that has been out awhile (at least from what I can tell), so it’s probably closer to what Marvel’s doing with their digital comics initiative (minus the monthly fee) or even the comics feature here on Newsarama. It also seems like it’s a little more planned out than the MySpace promotion, which Mosher said came together pretty quickly at the BOOM! holiday party last year.

On a related note, Neil Gaiman posted the results of his recent foray into “free,” when he and HarperCollins offered American Gods on his blog. The conclusion:

Given that Harper Collins sold a lot more of all my books while the free American Gods was out there, with sales of all my titles up 40% through independent bookshops, I think I can safely say that we’ll be doing it — or rather, something similar — again. And that the 56% of people who didn’t enjoy the online reading experience may be a lot happier with how we do it next time out.

This September BOOM! Studios is putting out a benefit book to raise money for Josh Medors, who has been fighting cancer for several months. A great line-up of creators have donated their talent, including Steve Niles, Josh Fialkov, Kody Chamberlain, B. Clay Moore & Seth Peck, Chris Samnee and Tony Fleecs. Bringing it all together is designer Ed Dukeshire and editor Dan Taylor.

I emailed Dan a few questions about the book, its line-up and how Josh is doing.

JK: How did you get involved with the Josh Medors tribute book? Do you know
Josh?

Dan: I was actually contacted by Matt Gagnon — now Managing Editor Matt Gagnon — from BOOM! It’s my understanding that I was recommended to them by way of Elk’s Run writer Josh Fialkov (who would be a nobody in this town if I hadn’t taken him under my wing back when he was just fresh off the bus and all wide-eyed with wonder). Matt was looking for someone who knew Josh and had experience in editing comic books. Having spent about three years as an editor at IDW Publishing, I knew a little something about pulling a book together. When Matt asked if I would shepherd the project, it didn’t take long for me to get back to him with a resounding “yes” because not only was it a worthy cause, it was a worthy cause for someone I knew personally.

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– Batman invades New York.

– BOOM! has launched a retailer-only blog “to get our comics into the hands of retailers so they will be able to order our books with more confidence than ever before,” according to Sales Director Chip Mosher.

– Over at Funny Book Babylon, David Uzumeri deconstructs and annotates Morrison’s Batman. [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3].

– The Mindless Ones take a look back at Grant Morrison and Mark Millar’s Aztek, The Ultimate Man. “Imagine a comic by either of these two lasting only ten issues today. Boggles the mind.”

– Chris Weston finishes the Twelve cover I mentioned a few days back.

BOOM! Studios sent out a press release with some preview art for their upcoming benefit book for artist Josh Medors, who was diagnosed with cancer. The book will include work by Steve Niles, Josh Fialkov, Kody Chamberlain, B. Clay Moore & Seth Peck, Chris Samnee and Tony Fleecs, with two different covers by Ben Templesmith and Josh Medors. It’s edited by Dan Taylor and designed by Ed Dukeshire.

BOOM! will sell a limited number of the book at their booth in San Diego.

That’s Templesmith’s cover off to the right. More details on each of the stories, as well as preview art, can be found after the jump.

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If you were planning on attending the con for just a day or two, it looks like your options are even more limited now — Friday is sold out, according to the official San Diego Comic-Con site.

Before we get into the updates folks sent me, a couple of links:

–Writing for Publisher’s Weekly, Laura Hudson does a deep dive into how the size of Comic-Con has affected the overall experience of attending. Laura does a nice job of tying all the big non-comics properties you can find there, like video games and movies, back to comics … First Second’s Prince of Persia graphic novel, Gerard Way writing for Dark Horse, Steve Niles and all his movie opportunities, etc.

– I don’t think I’ve linked to Tom’s Guide to Visiting and Enjoying CCI in San Diego yet, which has a lot of great tips about the show and San Diego in general. I feel like I’ve fulfilled the community service portion of my parole by sending you to it, esp. if you’ve never attended the show.

Now let’s get into the updates. This time around we’ve got’em from DC Comics, BOOM!, Impact Books, Marc Bernardin and many more. And we still have plenty of time before the show for me to do more of these round-ups, so send me your booth schedules, comic debuts and all that good stuff.

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– 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. …