There appears to be some sort of competition between Warner Bros. and Lionsgate to see which studio can churn out the most posters for one movie. Warner Bros. is winning with Watchmen, but it’s not for lack of trying on Lionsgate’s part.

Anyway, Cinematical has the roughly 173rd, and supposedly final, poster for Frank Miller’s adaptation of The Spirit. The movie opens on Dec. 25.

– Alison Bechdel and Harvey Pekar, together at last.

– Steve Duin has some good news about underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson, who has been in ICU for the past several days.

– Ada Price talks to Dave Gibbons about his new book, Watching the Watchmen.

– Looks like it’s official: Naruto Nation 2009 is totally a go.

– Sam Thielman looks at the significance of Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing in light of the new super-fancy collection coming out soon.

– Over at Stars and Stripes, Gary Trudeau answers some of his critics.

– Van Jensen talks to Mike Allred about the revamped Red Rocket collection.

– Here’s my idea of a fun time: Dan Nadel, Gary Panter and CF sitting around, talking about art and comics.

– Did you know About Comics is 10 years old this year? I didn’t. Chris Murphy has a recollection.

– Sandy Bilus is giving away a copy of Alan’s War over at his blog.

– Oscar Pedro Musibay looks at the Comics Galaxy event that was held at last weekend’s Miami Book Fair.

– Frank Santoro considers the new Popeye collection.

Stripper’s Guide’s Allan Holtz provided a bunch of the strips for NBM’s new Happy Hooligan collection. He had a lot of leftover material, however, which he’s been posting to his blog over the past few days.

– So Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki’s Skim was named as a finalist for the Governor-General’s Award for children’s literature up in Canada, except that Tamaki’s name was left off of the official list of nominees, because technically, she’s the artist and not the “writer.” Letters of protest were written, but apparently to no avail. Tom has reactions from those involved, including Jillian Tamaki.

– Spurgeon also has an interesting interview with Slow Wave cartoonist Jesse Reklaw. I never knew, for instance, that Reklaw left Yale to pursue a career in comics.

– Some people were worried that Tribune Media might be ending the Dick Tracy comic strip. But it turns out those fears may have been premature.

– Aaron Albert talks the Hellboy talk to Mike Mignola for About.com.

– Hey, Kramer’s Ergot 7 is going on tour!

– Another day, another editorial cartoonist gets laid off.

– Finally, Vice magazine talks to Lynda Barry.

With slightly more than a month until the release of The Spirit, Lionsgate has released one final trailer for Frank Miller’s adaptation of the Will Eisner comic.

The Spirit opens on Christmas.

Gene Yang gets the choice seat in the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s Funny Pages section with his new serialized story about sibling rivalry.

Man, no one did rique humor better than Arno. He made the smuttiest joke look classy.

– Harry N. Abrams plans to publish Barry Deutsch’s acclaimed Webcomic Hereville in book form. Brigid Alverson has details.

– Steve Duin provides an update on S. Clay Wilson’s health. Short answer: “His condition has not improved significantly.”

– “There’s an exotica Americans find in my stories that’s lost on Israeli readers:” Nisha Gopalan interviews Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan about her new book Jamilti.

– Colleen Doran is looking for a few good cartoonists to help her review data for the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines.

– Kai-Ming Cha has a great interview with editor Sean Michael Wilson about Top Shelf’s upcoming AX anthology. “We’re selecting it from the 10 year archive so we’re talking about some 20,000 pages. That’s a lot of stuff to choose from.”

– Peter Sanderson celebrates the 20th anniversary of Sandman with a look back.

– Sanderson also looks at the new Vertigo Encyclopedia.

– The Daily Cartoonist reports that editorial cartoonists Steve Greenberg and Lee Judge are being laid off from their respective newspapers.

– Things to do: David B and Igort will be at the Beguiling in Toronto this Saturday.

– Other things to do: Kim Deitch will be doing a Q&A event with Bill Kartalopoulos at MoCCA tomorrow night. From the pr: “In a unique and wide-ranging conversation, the two will discuss Deitch’s work and
career to date.  Deitch will preview images from his current works in progress and field questions from the audience.”

– Joe Sacco offers an insightful review of Guy Delisle’s Burma Chronicles.

… flying into the middle of what looks like could be a really fun Peanuts game:

According to Joystiq, the game doesn’t have a publisher yet, and it won’t be done until 2010. Rats.

Josh Brolin still isn’t sure about Jonah Hex

There was at least some truth to the rumor-mill report last month about Josh Brolin playing Jonah Hex in the upcoming Mark Neveldine-Brian Taylor adaptation.

Brolin, star of W. and No Country for Old Men, is mulling over the part but he hasn’t — in the words of the original story — “locked down the deal.” IESB says nothing has been signed, and Collider reports Brolin may end up working on a Tony Scott movie.

The Warner Bros. adaptation of the DC Comics Western anti-hero was announced in July 2007. In March, producer Andrew Lazar said he wants to film Jonah Hex in New Orleans, for a potential 2010 release.

(more…)

Lionsgate has released 20 new images from Frank Miller’s adaptation of The Spirit, which opens on Dec. 25.

You can see all of them at MovieWeb.

I haven’t picked up a copy of it yet, but the collection of Tall Tales, a collection of a comic strips Mad magazine artist Al Jaffee did in the late 1950s-early 60s strikes me as one of the more intriguing collections of this year. Ger Apeldoorn must agree, as he’s posted a number of Jaffee’s color Sunday strips up on his blog.

From ASIFA. Because you can never have too much Fosdick.

After last night’s historic election results here in the United States, editorial cartoonists capture the moment … and Daryl Cagle captures the cartoons. Check’em out.

– Van Jensen hangs out with Paul Pope to find out about the new reprint edition of Heavy Liquid, which Pope initiated when he discovered out of print copies selling on eBay for as much as $200: ” ‘That was disgusting to me,’ he said. ‘That was money those fans could’ve spent on other books.’ ”

– Kai-Ming Cha talks to Yen Press’ Kurt Hassler about the imprint’s absorption into Hachette’s Orbit imprint.

– Tom Richmond looks at how Mad Magazine has covered close elections in the past.

– Alan Gardner critiques the revamped Comics.com site.

– Erin Finnegan reports on the MangaNext show in Somerset, NJ.

– Apparently Famous Monsters of Filmland’s Forrest J. Ackerman is not doing well.

– Doug Wolk reports on last weekend’s APE convention.

– Noah Berlatsky doesn’t care for S. Clay Wilson’s work.

– Jen de Guzman wonders why Slave Labor isn’t getting that many submissions anymore and decides to blame the Internet.

– Because you don’t have enough to read: Here’s Graphic Novel Reporter.

Sure, you can dig out your DVDs of Great Pumpkin and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, but what if you’re jonesing for some Peanuts on the bus ride to work? Well, the Schulz family and Warner Bros. Motion Comics has anticipated the problem and produced 20 new three-to-four minute cartoons featuring Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of the gang, and made specifically for the Web, cell phones and iPods. The Associated Press has the details:

The videos are all new, made with Flash animation and new voices. Even though it’s new technology, attention has been paid to maintaining the integrity of the strip and its beloved animation specials.

“You’re not trying to change it,” said Jeannie Schulz, widow of the Peanuts creator. “You’re trying to keep it the same and freshen it.”

For a limited time, you can download two episodes for free, but only at iTunes. Otherwise, individual episodes will be priced at 99 cents each, or you can buy the full season for $7.99.

NPR, meanwhile, has an interview with the late Charles Schulz’s son Craig, where he talks about how they found the voices for the new animated shorts and the strip’s legacy. He also talks about how he can see his childhood reflected in the strip, in the way that his father drew certain backgrounds and objects that mimiced their own home, a fact I found more fascinating than anything else in the interview.

Cartoonist Roger Langridge shares some comic strips from Nickelodeon Magazine, featuring Spongebob Squarepants reimagined as several different comic strips, like Terry & the Pirates and Peanuts (above).

Via Drawn

– The final Opus strip ran yesterday.

– Who would like to see some of John Romita Jr’s cover drafts? Now let’s not see the same hands.

– Why does Mort of Bazooka Joe fame constantly cover the lower half of his face? The Onion has the answer and it’s not pretty.

– Kick Ass’ protagonist and Chester Brown: Separated at birth?

– Alan David Doane talks to Ivan Brunetti, podcast-style, about the new Anthology of Graphic Fiction collection.

– Ladies and gentlemen, the top 10 immortal characters of pop fiction.

– Same Hat has some excerpts from their interview with author and manga translator Frederik Schodt, the full text of which will appear in their zine, Electric Ant.

– Charles Brubaker talks with Kevin McCormack, creator of the late-lamented strip Arnold.

– Eric Reynolds provides what will likely be the last 2008 SPX report.

– The Comics Comics blog is all love, flowers and rainbows now.

Things were all a-twitter in the Features Department where I work last Friday. Why? Because Gary Trudeau had decided to predict a victory for Barack Obama in Tuesday’s election:

Wednesday’s strip is set in Iraq and features military characters huddled around a television that proclaims “And it’s official — Barack Obama has won. . . .”

In an e-mail to The Times, Trudeau said newspapers should run the strip because “. . . polling data gives McCain a 3.7% chance of victory. There’s a greater risk that their presses will break down on election day. So I’ve been encouraging editors to choose hope over fear. And reminding them that if I’m wrong, it’ll be my face that’ll be covered with egg, not theirs.”

As a result, a number of daily newspapers that carry Trudeau’s strip had to quickly decide whether to run the strip or substitute it for reruns (from this past summer). And no, I’m not telling you what the Patriot-News decided. Go buy a copy of the paper.

Meanwhile, the John McCain camp responded by stating “We hope the strip proves to be as predictive as it is consistently lame.”

You can read more on the story here, here, here, here and here. Oh, and be sure to read this post by News & Record’s John Robinson, where he wonders what all the fuss is about anyway.

To close out the day, here are 13 fun & frightening links — some comic related, some not — to enjoy …

• Splash Page has a preview of Dark Horse Comics’ upcoming Creepy archive.

• Great Caesar’s Post has been running horror posts for the past couple of weeks, including Iron Man pumpkins and Hellboy stories.

• The Beat has the complete “Teratoid Cystoma” from Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack Volume 1 as a Halloween treat.

• Bruce Springsteen has a free song about the Jersey Devil up on his site for Halloween.

• World record zombie walk.

• Check out one of the special features from the upcoming Hellboy II DVD release.

• Marvel.com talks to various creators about terrifying moments in comics.

• Character Design looks at various characters from Nightmare Before Christmas.

• Neil Gaiman shows the one-sheet poster for the upcoming adaptation of his book Coraline.

• They Crawl By Night!

• Freddy Krueger, registered offender.

• I’ve had this nightmare before.

• And finally, Halloween is a good time to check out Necessary Monsters if you haven’t yet.

Happy Halloween!