The TV series ended last year, but DC Comics has decided that Smallville will live on – in our hearts. Wait, no, I mean “as a weekly digital comic, with chapters collected into print later.” The DCU blog The Source unveiled the creative team for what they’re calling Smallville Season 11 today: Bryan Q. Miller and Pere Perez, who’ll launch the weekly digital series on April 13, with the print edition following a month later on May 16 (Cat Staggs provides covers for the digital editions, with Gary Frank doing the same for the print version, interestingly enough).

It’s DC’s fourth series to debut digitally, behind Beyond The Fringe, Justice League Beyond and Batman: Arkham City; apparently, the publisher believes that the format is best served as some level of media tie-in. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not it proves popular enough to see a comic-only series at any time – as well as what amount of publicity DC manages to get out of continuing Smallville as a comic, considering the devoted core audience that the show still managed to keep even after ten years on the air.

Do I consider my work on the story to be award-winning? Certainly not.

But how can John credit me for STATIC‘s failure when, before I was even involved, he couldn’t get a plan approved or get off the ground?

How can John credit me for STATIC‘s failure when he once again floundered after resuming full control of the story with issue #4?

John had very fixed preconceptions of what STATIC should be, very much aligned with his own Rozum-esque sensibility. When Editorial asked him for a different vision, he got knocked out of kilter and just couldn’t regain his balance. He just couldn’t see how to move from where he was to where editorial wanted him to be. I didn’t cause that.

When I joined the team, I had NO preconceptions. I listened, carefully, to what Harvey was trying to achieve, and then set out to achieve it. I didn’t conspire against John. I just did the job the way John should have.

For a variety of reasons, many people regard this book as a total failure. I must be totally out of touch with reality, because while it was far from perfect, I think it was also far from being a total “turd.”

I thought it was a romping adventure that featured a young hero who was discovering new things about himself – about his powers, about his perception of people. We (most of it from me and Harvey) extended his power set in believable ways entirely consistent with his TRUE core ability (his telekinetic ability to manipulate electrons). We (mostly me) introduced a lot of characters to implement STATIC’s story of growth.

It might not have been what people expected, but wasn’t that an important ingredient of the DCnU relaunch? There was a lot of NEW in this STATIC.

That’s from Scott McDaniel’s lengthy response to John Rozum’s explanation for quitting Static Shock with the series’ fourth issue, in which he called the book “a mediocre comic series” and complained about unprofessional treatment and a particularly negative experience. Reading the two together – and parsing out the passive aggressiveness in both – what becomes clear very quickly is a creative mismatch between McDaniel and Rozum’s sensibilities, as well as a horrendous breakdown in communications between editorial and the two creators; instead of there being any smoking gun of “He Said He Said” gossip or controversy here, it just seems sad and a wasted opportunity all round. Static Shock deserved better.

Mark Millar responds to Before Watchmen as only Mark Millar can:

AFTER WATCHMEN: THE SECRET SERVICE

Do I dare do that as a publicity campaign for the book?

“Attention Watchmen loyalists – Vote with your dollars and buy Secret Service #1 in April”

Is that too much? Even for me?

Considering Watchmen‘s Dave Gibbons is illustrating the book, it’s almost fitting, especially as – as Sarah Velez puts it in the resulting thread at Millarworld, “[t]his is pretty much the perfect dichotomy between creator owned and company owned stuff. You and the co-creator of the watchmen coming out with original new material–while DC put out prequels down by neither co-creator, based on 25 year old work.” With DC creating “Before Watchmen” as a brand, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to use “After Watchmen”; if not this, then I’d hope Top Shelf use it for the next League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book…

Well, this is something I didn’t expect to see anytime soon; DC Comics has released its digital sales rankings for last month – No estimates of numbers sold, of course – and… well, it looks very much like the Diamond top 10 for the month, to be honest:

#1: Batman #5

#2: Justice League #5

#3: Action Comics #5

#4: Detective Comics #5

#5: Green Lantern #5

#6: Batman and Robin #5

#7: Batman #4

#8: Justice League #4

#9: Superman #5

#10: Aquaman #5

Couple of interesting things to see there, not least of which are the previous month’s issues of Batman and Justice League placing so highly (The Dark Knight and Flash are the two books that those issues replace from the Diamond charts). It’s also curious to see that the top 5 is essentially the same as the Diamond chart, with the exception of Justice League and Batman being swapped around in order; clearly, DC has a very clear idea of what its hits books are, across different formats.

Now, if only we could convince ComiXology to compile a download chart not unlike the Diamond chart so we could see rankings for all publishers each month…

Here’s a totally random thought brought on by all the Before Watchmen hoopla: What does this mean for Marvel’s Marvelman plans?

On the one hand, it’s great for Marvel: It shows there’s a high level of interest in (and respect for) Moore’s work, which suggests that a release of Moore’s original Marvelman material would have a much, much bigger impact than the earlier Mick Anglo reprints if it ever happens. But I can’t help but feel that it also points to a potential backlash for any new material planned for the character, at least new Marvelman that doesn’t include Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham, and that feels like it could be a real problem for the House of Ideas.

Marvel, it seems to me, doesn’t “do” legacy material well; in addition to the often-discussed inability to keep material in print continuously without switching format, Marvel hasn’t historically been good at letting classic material stay as classic material without trying to resurrect or revamp it and make it into an ongoing property (See the attempts to revive things like Kirby’s Eternals, or even the New Universe, in recent years). I think most fans expected that Marvel would want to do more with Marvelman than just reprint the classic material, and I wonder whether seeing the uproar in response to the Before Watchmen announcements will change that. After all, if fans can’t accept Cooke, Azzarello and JMS as writers, are they really likely to hook into more Marvelman from the likes of Bendis, Fraction or whoever Marvel would have to offer…?

Alternatively, if the outrage about Before Watchmen is all about that particular series’ status as (a) a conflicted ownership property and (b) a completed story, then Marvelman may be spared all of this kind of protest. I guess we’ll see if and when Marvel ever do anything with the character…

The news that DC took the entire Diamond Comics Distributors top 10 in January seems somewhat stunning. I know that Marvel had a relatively quiet month, with no new launches outside of the second-tier Scarlet Spider and Wolverine and The X-Men: Alpha and Omega mini, but nonetheless, it’s amazing that fifth issues from ten different DC books managed to outsell second issues of Avengers: X-Sanction or Defenders or the oversized Wolverine #300, especially when you remember that DC didn’t manage to take the entire top 10 in September, when their entire New 52 line launched.

(It’s interesting to look at the top 100, and see where the Marvel books do fall in the chart – Most of the big ones form a pile up in the back half of the top 20, with the relaunched core X-Men titles outselling the Avengers books handily; looks like that franchise is back on top at Marvel, for the first time in years. I’m genuinely surprised to see Defenders #2 all the way in the 40s, mind you; with that creative team and amount of pre-release hype, I expected it to be way higher. Also worth pointing out: Look at the dollar ranking of the books: In that, Marvel and DC split the top 10 evenly, but the 5 top selling books by quantity are also the 5 top selling books by dollar share…)

Considering that we’re still in the window of DC’s orders being discounted on the chart by 10% because of availability, it’d be interesting to see what the real numbers for these books would be, and try and work out what this means – Are retailers ordering substantially heavier even at this stage because of the returnability, or do they believe that they can sell more DC books than Marvel, when it comes down to it without any outside influences or events goosing sales (All bets are off to that when it comes to Avengers vs. X-Men and this summer’s Avengers movie, of course)? And, as ever in this scenario, do the sell-through numbers echo the orders?

A plus from the Before Watchmen insanity has been KC Carlson’s Westfield Comics blog post about the infamous Watchman Ashcan. What’s that? You’ve never heard of such a thing…? Let KC explain…

You see, Al Gordon, as well as being a legendary inker for decades, was also in the running for being the most legendary Watchmen fan, ever. He would pester any DC editor he could find to send him advance photocopies of the Watchmen issues before they were published. The wait between #11 and #12 was obviously driving Al crazy, as he was calling DC every day wondering were his photocopy was. He managed to tick off several people. So, some unidentified DC staffer made sure that Al got the very first photocopy of Watchmen #12 — but not before that mystery person gathered together a bunch of other unidentified DC folks (possibly named Carlin, Helfer, and Bove) to alter the photocopy.

KC links to this old CBR column where Mark Waid gives more details:

It gets increasingly wackier, but it’s really subtle at first. The first dozen pages or so, you wouldn’t know your mind was being messed with unless you were paying super-close attention, I swear. Gradually, however, small alterations in the lettering and art turn into huge ones. In the end, by the time Veidt reveals that his agent of psychic delivery isn’t the squid, it’s reruns of “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” you’d kinda have to catch on.

This is something that I really wish would see official print at some point, even if it’s just as an extra in yet another collected edition in years to come.

Suddenly, DC is very, very grateful it’s a leap year. The publisher has told retailers that Justice League #6 will ship two weeks late, with the once-every-four-years February 29th date being the only thing that keeps it within its solicited month of release; this is the second month in a row that Justice League will be shipped late, with the delay doubling in length this time around.

Artist Jim Lee takes a two issue break starting with the March-solicited #7, allowing Gene Ha and Carlos D’Anda to illustrate the next two issues while Lee gets a jump on the next storyarc, “The Villain’s Journey,” scheduled to begin with #9 – an issue that hasn’t been solicited yet. Could we see Justice League take a break for a month in order to give Lee a chance to get ahead on deadlines again, perhaps…?

Immediate reactions to the Before Watchmen announcement:

• Wow, that’s a lot of comics. Seven interconnected mini-series, none of which are less than four issues, with an eighth title getting a one-shot to top it all off?
• That’s a fascinating list of creators; whatever you might think of the idea, there’s no denying that this will be the best-looking sub-line of DC’s while it’s running. Darwyn Cooke, Amanda Conner, JG Jones, Jae Lee, Adam Hughes and the Kuberts? I mean, that’s an amazing line-up of artists. Writing-wise, Cooke and Brian Azzarello are interesting choices, and not names you would’ve immediately thought of for this kind of gig (J. Michael Straczynski and Len Wein, on the other hand, seem almost like gimmes). The creative line-up really is a sign that DC has thought hard about this, and isn’t just crapping it out for the money.
• …As, I’d argue, is the timing. If this was just a cash grab, I would’ve expected it around the release of the movie a few years back, or even closer to the New 52 relaunch of the line last year.
• That said, I believe that “We can make money from this” is a reason for Before Watchmen more than the given reason of “As publishers, we have to keep our characters relevant.” Going by that logic, I’ll be waiting for Sugar And Spike: The High School Years and Fireman Farrell: Another Hot Time In The Old City Tonight being announced any day now.
• Also embarrassing in the official press release: Dave Gibbons’ contribution, which may be the definition of contractual obligation and/or backhanded compliment, and definitely doesn’t feel like the kind of “Godspeed, New Project!” endorsement that it was clearly intended to be.

Weirdly, the announcement of Before Watchmen feels entirely appropriate; somewhat embarrassing, downright unbelievable, but those creators, man… too good to just walk away from, convinced that the entire thing is doomed to failure in every respect.

The CW’s Green Arrow TV pilot now has an actor for the DC superhero title role, 30-year-old Canadian actor Stephen Amell, Deadline reports.

Amell’s credits include stints on fellow CW dramas The Vampire Diaries and 90210, with his, ahem, largest part of late on HBO’s Hung, where he played male prostitute Jason.

The pilot — which is currently just called Arrow — was officially ordered earlier this month. Justin Hartley played Green Arrow in Smallville, which ended last year — no word at this point if this new series will have any palpable connection to what’s come before. David Nutter, who directed the Smallville, Supernatural and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles pilots, is helming this one, written by Andrew Kreisberg, Greg Berlanti and comic book veteran Marc Guggenheim — the latter two worked on 2011′s Green Lantern feature, and created the ABC series Eli Stone.

DC is teasing out more details about its Free Comic Book Day offering, with a post on official blog The Source promising preview material from the second wave of ongoing New 52 titles (Batman Incorporated, Dial H, Earth 2, GI Combat, The Ravagers and Worlds’ Finest), “art by legendary illustrator Jim Lee and other top talents” – which sounds, to me, suspiciously like it’ll be either sketchbook material, pages from already released comics or something we’ve already seen in some form – and a brand new story by Geoff Johns, although no artist is listed for that story yet.

The post promises “more surprises to come” about the free book, which’ll make its debut May 5. Will we see more new titles announced between now and then to be previewed in the book? Will the identity of the artist for the new Johns story turn out to be a surprise in and of itself (Any Marvel exclusive artists rumored to be making the jump between publishers anytime soon, I wonder…)? Batteries to power. Speculation Engines to speed.

The annual GLAAD Award nominees have been announced, and the comic category has some strong contenders this year; both Archie’s Kevin Keller and DC’s Batwoman feature LGBT leads, with the latter’s Secret Six and Marvel’s two nominees, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade and X-Factor all featuring prominent LGBT characters in their core line-up. My biases may push the choice in Kevin Keller‘s favor, if only because of Archie’s boldness not only introducing the character into the traditionally conservative universe but also allowing him to get married – but what do you think? Who deserves the win – and which books (and characters) should’ve made the nominee list but didn’t?

Writing about the lack of visual continuity in the new DC Comics logo the other day made me think about the current Justice League logo, and the way that it, too, has broken with tradition. Y’see, for the most part – of the nine logos the book has had since the title launched way back in 1960, all but three haven’t featured a shield motif in one way or another (and those have all been the most generic and forgettable of the logos, interestingly enough). (more…)

The new DC Comics logo is real, and officially launched at Fast Company. Here are some of the variant versions we’ll see in months to come:

The story includes DC’s EVP of Sales John Rood and Amit Desai, senior vice president of franchise management, talking about the change, with Desai explaining that “The peel element can tie back to the storytelling content or character we’re showcasing, and leverage those colors. The ‘C’ can be a vessel to showcase stories and character. It’s unexpected, requires a little thinking and some storytelling behind that mark.”

Seeing these finished, colored and variant versions has taken me from kind of liking the logo to really liking it – It may not be Milton Glaser’s classic DC bullet, but it’s more attractive to me than the current DC spin. Apparently, the look will begin appearing on comics in March.

If rumors are true, DC Comics is just days away from announcing a new corporate logo (which has so far received more than its fair share of abuse online; personally, I quite like it). What’s surprising about this – beyond the fact that the reveal wasn’t timed with last September’s linewide relaunch of the entire DCU line – is the logo itself, which is the first in the company’s 77 year history to break with the brand’s visual signature of the circle. After all, here are DC’s logos to date:

Even with the tilted spin of the most recent logo, there’s a sense of evolution and continuity from redesign to redesign that the rumored new logo just… doesn’t have. Clearly, it’s the end of an era…

Last week, Marvel stripped announcements across five days of press conferences, with Next Big Thing events for previously-known events like Remender and Hardman’s Secret Avengers run and the 15th anniversary of Thunderbolts mixed in with artist changes (Walt Simonson joining Avengers), crossovers (“The Omega Event” running through Avenging Spider-Man, Daredevil and Punisher) and a book relaunch (Captain America And…). In comparison, DC lumped the announcement of six new series into one USA Today story.

There’s something to be gleaned from this comparison, but I’m not entirely sure what it actually is just yet: That Marvel knows how to make the most out of what could otherwise be bland status updates? That DC prefers to emphasize the overall “New 52″ line over individual books or individual creators (I feel that Marvel tends to place creators at the center of their announcements, whereas DC’s feel more focused on the characters, DC as a company and the upper echelons of management, but that may just be me)? That Marvel just generally makes more of a song and dance out of things than DC…? If nothing else, that last one does fit the stereotype for both companies, so maybe it’s really just as simple as that – but I can’t stop myself feeling as if both companies could choose to learn from each other in terms of which announcements to emphasize, and which to just leave out there without feeling the need to push.

Looks like the former house of Smallville is looking for another bullseye.

Deadline is reporting that the CW is finalizing a deal for a Green Arrow pilot, presently called Arrow. Written and executive produced by Green Lantern co-writers Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, and Fringe and Vampire Diaries writer, Andrew Kreisberg. This would take place outside comic canon and focus much on it’s own mythology, though I’m sure with nods and certain details from the Green Arrow comic origin.

Now take into consideration that there is still a Deadman pilot in the works and developing a series based on a DC property to succeed the departed Smallville is a priority for the CW this development season. No word yet if Justin Hartley will sling the bow and arrow again this round or if they are looking to start from beginning and start fresh.

So readers, what do you think of this matter? With NBC passing on Wonder Woman, and Smallville gone, is there room for the Emerald Archer on your tv screens?

DC is clearly continuing to revise its collection policies when it comes to pre-New 52 material. Not only does the latest round of shipping updates permanently cancel the final collection of Eric Wallace’s Titans run (and in the same week as his Mister Terrific series gets cancelled, too! Sorry, Mr. Wallace), but it also cancels the current orders for both Batman vs. The Black Glove Deluxe Edition HC and Legion of Super-Heroes: The Choice TP, with both to be resolicited at a later date. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not the content of both collections changes with the new solicits; if nothing else, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Batman vs. The Black Glove Deluxe Edition HC ends up being farmed out into two shorter collections – At 14 issues for $29.99, this oversized hardcover seemed like a surprisingly good deal.

According to DC Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras, just because OMAC, Hawk & Dove, Men of War, Blackhawks, Mister Terrific and Static Shock are ending with #8 doesn’t mean that we’ve seen the last of those characters:

[T]hose characters that are not going to be in their own titles will be appearing in other books as well. We are definitely dedicated to diversity. That’s not going to stop now. That’s an ongoing part and parcel to what we do.As I said earlier, those characters are not going away. They will be appearing in other books.

Some of those other books seem relatively easy to predict: Mister Terrific, after all, was launched in the Justice League family, and so will presumably turn up in that book at some point, and both Static and Hawk & Dove have histories with the Teen Titans franchise, and so might show up over there in the future (Dove, of course, is also a co-star in Justice League Dark right now, so it’s not impossible that Hawk might join that cast as well). But what about OMAC, the Blackhawks or Sgt. Rock? OMAC, perhaps, might end up in Frankenstein considering their recent crossover, but as for the latter two, I’m stumped. Are there other New 52 books that need these characters – and if so, what are they?

Notice anything missing from the DC section of Diamond Distributors’ list of books to be released next week…? Here’s a clue: It’s been the top-selling book for the last few months, and an embarrassing – but not necessarily surprising – choice for the first New 52 book to miss a scheduled ship date. Yes, Justice League #5 has been delayed according to current shipping updates, fulfilling every naysayer’s expectations since Jim Lee was announced as the series artist.

The book is apparently only slipping a week, but given its third week placement in DC’s monthly schedule, that makes it perilously close to slipping a calendar month in future. Lee is also off the book for #7 and #8 (Gene Ha is filling in with #7, #8′s artist hasn’t been revealed yet, I don’t think…?), allowing the book to get back on time if #6 stays on the later schedule, but nonetheless: the flagship of the line shipping late is sure to cause some red faces over at DC – and if it manages to slip into another month altogether, it’ll also impact the publisher’s bottom line. What is the likelihood that we’ll see some unannounced fill-in artist helping Lee with #6 to ensure that doesn’t happen?