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.

Marvel gets behind the get-out-the-vote efforts with “Be a Hero, Vote!” button-like reminders featuring an odd array of characters. How odd? Try a Canadian mutant, a Norse god and a feathered alien.

Somehow, I just know ACORN will be blamed.

– 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.

Earlier this week Chris Mautner linked an article about a prefecture in Japan flagging woman’s manga magazines (out of 9 on the list) as “harmful”. This prompted a post on Melissa’s personal blog about the reaction to fanfiction on the Internet, and how the same mindset might be on display:

I always wondered what the PROBLEM was. (more…)

David Heatley took time to respond to the recent Comics Comics critical roundtable of his new book, My Brain Is Hanging Upside-Down:

I used to do this a lot, but I no longer spend time wishing works of art were something they’re not. I don’t wish Stan Brakhage made commercial Hollywood films. Or that Kanye West would do something more stripped down, personal and emotionally revealing. I try to accept art for what it is and decide if it has anything of value to offer me. If I take a stance against it, especially if it’s accompanied by a righteous feeling of being sure of my opinion, I’ve found that I’m using someone’s work to further my own unhappiness, discontent and irritability and ultimately it has nothing to do with the artist on whom I’ve fixed my angry gaze.

I admire Heatley for attempting to rebut some of the criticisms hurled at him in a polite, respectable manner, though I think he comes off as just a wee bit defensive and passive-aggressive, though perhaps that’s inevitable given that people are attacking his baby.

Anyway, Tom Spurgeon, Frank Santoro and Noah Berlatsky take him to task on a few points in the comments section before it all gets ugly and the thread gets shut down, so be sure and read those as well.

– Artist Shepard Fairey, who designed the “Hope” Obama poster, tells Boing Boing he’s pleased as punch to have his work parodied by Mad Magazine: “I consider a high point in my career for pop culture recognition.”

– Laura Hudson talks to James Kochalka about the 10th anniversary of his diary strip, American Elf.

– Hudson also interviews librarian and comics advocate Karen Green, who has a column over at Comixology.

– Doug Wolk looks at Bill Willingham’s upcoming plans for Fables, which include a prose novel.

– Bookslut talks to Phoebe Gloeckner.

– I hadn’t heard about this — cartoonist Carol Lay has a book coming out entitled The Big Skinny, about her lifelong battle with her weight. Wendy Werris has more details.

– Geeknerd’s annual Halloween Costume Bingo is up.

– Frank Santoro takes a look at the new Bat-Manga! collection and declares it good.

– Kristy Valenti takes time to remember the 1986 graphic novel Greenberg the Vampire, one of Marvel’s early entries into the graphic novel market.

– Noah Berlatsky thinks superhero comics are at their best when they don’t take themselves too seriously.

– Everyone and their uncle seems to be talking about Inio Asano’s Solanin, now in stores courtesy of Viz.

* (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Watoomb)

Last week’s talk of a possible big-screen future for Doctor Strange has triggered a groundswell of support for the Master of the Mystic Arts.

The Marvel-infatuated Motley Fool went so far as to suggest the company could become “the next Disney.” Because of a Doctor Strange movie?

“Just as Iron Man updated the comic book mythos for an audience all-too-familiar with human frailty, technological prowess, and Middle Eastern conflicts,” Tim Beyers writes, “a Dr. Strange movie could tap into our collective fascination with inner and outer demons. And Harry Potter, of course.”

Writing for AMC’s SciFi Scanner, Nick Nadel doesn’t go so far as to drop the D-word, but he does like how Doctor Strange “could expand Marvel’s ever growing bag of movie tricks.”

(more…)

Somebody’s not happy about Marvel Studios recasting James (War Machine) Rhodes in Iron Man 2.

No, not Don Cheadle; he’s probably pleased. No, not Marvel executives; they’re thrilled. Okay, I’ll give you Terrence Howard, who played Rhodey in the first film. He’s certainly chafed.

But I’m talking about these guys, who are upset enough to launch a website and petition demanding that Marvel Studios change its mind and return Howard to the role.

The message at HowardNOTCheadle.com reads:

(more…)

In one of the least-convincing Internet hoaxes since a certain Nigerian prince sent a message of an “urgent, private” nature, a video purporting to be the teaser trailer for The Flash made the rounds last week.

There are a few dead giveaways, not the least of which is that it looks terrible beyond even Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four, or Legends of the Superheroes. Another tell is the preface that attests the trailer was shown before a “private screening” of Watchmen. (While footage of the Zack Snyder movie has been shown to journalists around the country, none of the reports mention anything about The Flash teaser.)

And did I mention the teaser is god-awful? It’s so bad that Defamer asks for a moratorium on “dorm-room exercises masquerading as official teasers.”

“Your mastery of Windows MovieMaker is impressive, but seriously, enough.”

I think they’re being kind, though.

Can the Punisher + a skrull rifle take out the Sentry? It sounds like we’ll find out in the new Punisher series that launches in January. Jim McLauchlin talks to Joe Quesada about the new book in his latest MyCup ‘O Joe Column:

In 2009, the Marvel Universe is going to become a very, very scary place. It will be the type of place that’s begging for a guy like Frank Castle. With Punisher 1, we’re throwing Frank Castle right into center ring, hunting Big Game like only he can. It all starts with him standing on the edge of the Jersey shore with a Skrull rifle, his sights trained on the head of a major Marvel Universe player. You’ll have to wait and see who he’s aiming at, but suffice it to say, not since Civil War has Frank Castle been so affected by the ripple effects of the Marvel Universe—and never has it more needed his unique brand of justice. What’s the old saying? “One man with one bullet, in the right place, at the right time, can change the world?” Well, just imagine what Frank can do with a million bullets.

But can fans afford to buy another monthly title — esp. if the prices keep going up?

(more…)

(Via Irene Gallo)

• Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki’s Skim has been shortlisted for the Canada Council for the Arts’s 2008 Governor General’s Literary Awards in the Children’s Literature-Text category. [Xtra]

• An Italian prosecutor claims that a vampire manga — which one, I don’t know — inspired Raffaele Sollecito to kill Meredith Kercher in 2007. The defense calls the theory “stupid.” Curiously, earlier this year British tabloids tried to link the bloody murder to Akira. [BBC News]

• Designer and author Chip Kidd talks briefly about Bat-manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan: “”It was a labour-of-love project, an act of graphic-novel reclamation, if you want to call it that.” [National Post]

• Suzan Colón of The Advocate is encouraged by the promise of two non-heterosexual characters in James Robinson’s new Justice League series: Batwoman and the alien Starman. She also rattles off a list of “seven of the most memorable queer heroes.” [Advocate.com]

• If you’re thinking about starting a blog, don’t. Paul Boutin says the Age of the Solo Blogger is over: “Scroll down Technorati’s list of the top 100 blogs and you’ll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones. Most are essentially online magazines: The Huffington Post. Engadget. TreeHugger. A stand-alone commentator can’t keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.” [Wired]

The stars must have aligned once again, because it’s time for another all-star Cage Match over at Comics Comics!

The basic idea is the magic triumvirate of Tim Hodler, Dan Nadel and Frank Santoro engage in a lengthy blogging critique of an either new or well-established graphic novel (past victims include Omega the Unknown and Heavy Liquid). This time the crew is taking on David Heatley’s newest (and largely autobiographical) work, My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down. Frank lays the opening salvo:

But Heatley’s new book just makes me angry. And I think that’s what he wants. He wants to provoke reactions like mine so that he can “work out” his insecurities, his racism and his issues with women on the page. And be forgiven.

I’ve been waiting to see this cartoonist take the next step and I think his new book is incredibly disappointing.

Dan picks up the ball from there (to mix my metaphors:

I think what riles people up about this book is precisely the public/personal nature of it: That is, it’s a book explicitly about coming to grips with some notion of morality or a way of accepting one’s own behavior. Unlike the demonstrative fantasies of Crumb or meandering autobio of Joe Matt, this is direct, speaking to the reader kinda stuff. It’s specifically drawn as, in a sense, therapy. That such a process becomes so public is what, I think, some people fine alternately compelling or repulsive about it.

As for me, I find myself somewhere in between Frank and Dan’s takes on the book. I think Heatley shows a good deal of promise as a cartoonist and I admire his willingness to bare the intimate and embarrassing aspects of his life, but a lot of the stories in Brain strike me as shallow, like they’re a cataloging events instead of an evaluation of them. I didn’t come away with any better understanding of Heatley as a person after reading his “Sex History” than I did before I began it.

Be sure to read the comments section as lots of thoughtful folks like Tom Spurgeon, Dash Shaw and Eric Reynolds enter into the fray.

– The marketing juggernaut continues: Sam Thielman talks with Art Spiegelman about the latter’s new book, Breakdowns.

– The comic strip Rhymes With Orange has a new Web site.

– Chris Arrant profiles Faith Erin Hicks and her new comic The War at Ellsmere.

– Eddie Campbell guides you through Comic Book Morality 101.

– Todd Allen looks at some of the new Webcomic offerings from Shadowline, Liquid and Marvel, and smells trouble … for them.

– Chip Zdarsky shares his ideas for Marvel Comics and it’s totally NSFW (hat tip: Heidi).

– Brigid Alverson writes about plans for the upcoming Haruhi Suzumiya manga.

– Spurious has an interesting essay on Charles Crumb, Robert’s late, tragic older brother.

– Erin Finnegan looks at Tokyopop’s release of Otsuichi’s Goth novel and manga.

– Richard O’Connor blogs about working on an animated They Might Be Giants video with Kim Deitch.

– The Lego enthusiast known as oxcrew has decided to retell the origin of Two-Face using … well, you figure it out. (hat tip: The Ephemerist)

– So Time Magazine is doing gag cartoons now? That’s interesting.

– David Welsh examines Jiro Taniguchi’s The Quest for the Missing Girl.

– Paul Hornschmeier has an amusing new T-shirt available for puchase.

– DJ Coffman and Scott Kurtz go at it on the Internet, and everyone wins.

– Spot the Frog creator Mark Heath has a new Web site up, promoting his gag cartoons.

Yale University Press has put together a nicely animated video of editor Ivan Brunetti talking about his latest project, An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, Volume 2, which, I must say, is one of the finest collections I’ve come across this year.

Ivan Brunetti on An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Vol. 2 from Yale University Press on Vimeo.

… so how about a little Ulf K?

‘Cause nothing helps you get through the work week like some Ulf K.

First Showing corrals a slew of official images from J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek that are scattered across the Internet. On top of that, Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine — Spock and Kirk — share the cover of the new Entertainment Weekly, which features a lengthy, and spoiler-laden, story on the movie.

Illustrator John Cuneo (nEuROTIC) has a nice section on his Web site highlighting sketches that never made it past the sketch stage. (hat tip: Tom).

– 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.