Speaking of Terry Moore … you might remember the Hulk #1 cover project that I blogged about right before Wizard World Chicago. It was a fund raiser for the Hero Initiative, where artists were asked to draw original Hulk art to be auctioned off on eBay. Moore points out that Frank Cho’s piece for the event was rejected:

Catching up on Frank Cho’s funny forum recently I read his Hulk cover was rejected entirely. Something about his rendition of the Hulk and She-Hulk, doing something or producing something decent people have decided we shouldn’t see. I haven’t seen the art in question, but now that it’s banned in all English speaking countries, I am, of course, dying to see it. Naturally, Frank’s cover would have sold for thousands. Sober estimates (much more trustworthy than the alternative) run at $8,000. It’s a shame. That’s a lot of money for a charity to lose.

On his message board, Cho comments on why it was rejected:

C’mon. It’s me. It can only mean one thing - too risque.

Americans fear female nudity.

In his latest column over at Comic Bulletin, comics writer Beau Smith shares a long list of opinions … stuff like “Bruce Wayne could be a more interesting a character if the Batman didn’t pick out his clothes for him” and “In the 1980’s, Pacific Comics, Eclipse Comics and First Comics were way ahead of their time creatively. Their books still measure up today and more.” (I agree with that second one).

One opinion, though, was a head scratcher: “J Torres, Sean McKeever, Tony Bedard, and Terry Moore shouldn’t be typecast as the guy writers that you hire when you can’t find a chick. They can do any gender.”

Blogger and Friends of Lulu president Valerie D’Orazio had some questions about that one:

Is there some sort of “shame” attached to being a male writer who writes stories starring women? Where does that leave the Hernandez Brothers? Are they just pussies? Are they just toiling away in Chickland until they land their big break on The Avengers?

Much more from Val at the link.

At Comixology, Tucker Stone considers what the estimated sales figures for Marvel and DC’s summer-event comics may actually tell us:

… the reaction seems to be that, since Marvel’s big event cross-over beat DC’s big event cross-over, there is somehow a connection between those pre-sale numbers and whether or not A) big corporate people should lose their jobs, B) Marvel speaks to the people in a way that DC doesn’t, or C) any of this really matters, at all. There’s something else that occasionally pops up, though — I’m assuming it isn’t as interesting to read or write about, but it’s what I’m more interested in this week. And that is that neither of those numbers — the estimated 200,344 copies of Secret Invasion # 2 versus the 159,036 of Final Crisis — are anything to be really impressed by. Sure, there’s a big discrepancy between those two books — but even at the top end of the scale, it’s only in comic books that 200,000 of anything is worth getting excited about.

Warning:  I’m going to talk about the Incredible Hulk again, so get comfy.

In the month of June possibly to celebrate the release of the new Incredible Hulk film, possibly to fill the late gap of Loeb’s Hulk, we got a bunch of big heafty issues with some backup stories and reprints.  Mind you, Iron Man got two new books that turned out to be pretty good jumping on points for those intreigued by the movie or so it worked over at our store.  Two titles, an ongoing to ease readers into the current comic events and a glossy prestigue mini-series and all the Hulk got was a rock.  It’s like the Marvel offices had the same prejudices of the movie going public had;  “Well, the last movie was lame so let’s just hope people don’t hate the new one and hope for the best’.  And before you say it, I know: Skaar, Son of Hulk new on the stands as well and they did get a comic with familiar Green Hulk in it under the wire for June, but neither of these are great intro comics for those who thought Edward Norton was keen.  In fact, I’d probably cozy up to the book a bit more if it was just called ‘Skaar, Conan in Space’ or ‘Grek Pak’s Interglatactic Tales of Skaar’ because the honest truth is if the Hulk ain’t in the book, it is not a Hulk book.   ‘Red’ Hulk doesn’t count because I have NO IDEA what’s going on with that story outside sort of an ‘All Star Batman’ feel of taking on the tropes of Hulkness:  smashing and gamma monsters.  Ehn.

Mind you, Marvel did the same thing with Ang Lee’s movie as their 25-cent issue released at the time of the movie  didn’t really have the Hulk in it either, but that’s another story.

Right, so the ’specials’:  King Size Hulk and Hulk: Raging Thunder.  You can technically count Giant-Sized Incredible Hulk, with the Gary Frank cover, but that’s semantics.  This is what Marvel brought to the table and, having read each of them, I can’t say I’m impressed.  But yet, I can’t <i>not</i> like them (well, except for the Giant Size, because it was a snooze fest) and let me tell you why.

(more…)

The Comics Are for Kids Too! panel was made up of Art Baltazar and Franco from Tiny Titans, Peter David (mostly because of his work on Marvel Adventures Spider-Man), Josh Elder and Russel Lissau from The Batman Strikes, and Owly’s Andy Runton.

The Wizard moderator opened the panel with a question about what comics the panelists read as kids that inform their current work. It probably shouldn’t have been surprising that most of them came to comics from other media. Bugs Bunny cartoons, Adam West’s Batman, Star Wars, and Super Friends were a few examples. David in particular talked about watching the old Adventures of Superman TV show and how excited he got when the announcer mentioned that the characters were based on a Superman magazine he’d never heard of.

In addition to that though, a lot of them were introduced to comics by older relatives. Lissau’s grandparents (on both sides of his family) loved Batman and Superman when he was a kid and used to make up stories for him featuring those characters. Elder learned to read when his mom lost her voice and couldn’t finish a Transformers comic she was reading to him. He figured out the words himself just to complete the story. Similarly, Runton learned to read from his mom’s reading him the Sunday comics pages.

David said that he got into comics at the barber shop, which stocked plenty of Harvey Comics. He fondly remembered not understanding that when Casper was drawn with a dotted line, it meant that he was invisible. Thinking it was supposed to be interactive, David would just connect the dots.

(more…)

I’ve been mostly blasé the last few years about Wizard World Chicago. Probably because it’s followed San Diego during that time and those creators who even bother to show up at Chicago are so exhausted from the other show. This year, even though Heroes was last weekend, there was a lot more energy. At least in Artists Alley. And even amongst the bigger names, though there were still some like Joe Quesada who didn’t show up, those who were there seemed rarin to go.

Friday night’s Bendis vs. Johns panel was a great example. It was the first of several panels that made the trip worthwhile this year and even though Vaneta’s already given an excellent and much-more-thorough rundown of the event at the mothership, I want to talk for a minute about what I learned from it. Then, in separate posts, I’ll cover the other three panels: the Wonder Woman Spotlight (also covered on the mothership, but I’ll have some more to add to it), Kids and Comics, and Women in Comics.

After a brief wrestling match, the two out-of-breath writers explained that their original intent for the panel was to highlight how similar their approaches are to writing corporate-owned characters and then talk about the differences. It was Wizard’s idea to dumb it down (my words) and add the “versus,” but Bendis and Johns hijacked their panel back (their words) by calling up other writers and artists from their respective companies to create the first ever DC/Marvel panel. There was some polite banter and trash-talking, but the hour was noticeably marked by mutual respect and admiration as everyone talked about the similarities and differences between the two companies.

(more…)

I groused yesterday about the obnoxious website watermark on the new posters for Punisher: War Zone. Today Lionsgate has more widely distributed the one-sheets, so now I’ll happily post one image and link to the rest.

Punisher: War Zone opens on Dec. 5.

Speaking of revisiting issues: Artist David Lafuente (Patsy Walker: Hellcat, Ultimate Spider-Man Annual) gives a wink to last year’s Mary Jane statuette controversy in this illustration, shown during the “Ultimate Universe” panel at Wizard World Chicago.

Writing for Barron’s, Bill Alpert provides an overview of Stan Lee Media’s $5 billion lawsuit against Marvel Entertainment, filed back in March 2007.

The article doesn’t appear to be tied to any movement in the suit, but instead relies on Marvel’s current box-office success as a news hook. Still, it’s a good summary of the players and events surrounding the case: infamous entrepreneur Peter F. Paul, a bankrupt dot-com, Stan himself, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The lawsuit asserts that in 1998 Lee assigned his intellectual property to Stan Lee Media before he negotiated a new contract with Marvel — the previous one was rejected during Marvel’s bankruptcy — in which he relinquished claims to ownership of the characters he co-created.

So Stan Lee Media, which is being sued by Stan Lee, claims it co-owns Lee’s Marvel creations, and should receive half of the money Marvel has earned from them. Marvel, of course, says the lawsuit has no merit.

Confused yet? Go read the article.

From Laura Park’s Flickr collection.

Matthew Fox will star in movie version of Oni’s Billy Smoke

Matthew Fox (Lost, Speed Racer) is in negotiations to star in Warner Bros.’ adaptation of Billy Smoke, the upcoming Oni Press graphic novel by B. Clay Moore and Eric Kim.

Set to be published next year, Billy Smoke centers on an elite hit man who’s nearly killed during a botched assignment. He then realizes his only way to redemption is to rid the world of all assassins.

Moore is best known as the writer of Hawaiian Dick and Leading Man, both of which are being developed as films — the former at New Line, the latter at Universal. Kim illustrated Love As A Foreign Language, also from Oni.

Basil Iwanyk’s Thunder Road is producing Billy Smoke with Eric Ginter of Closed on Mondays Entertainment, Oni’s film arm.

The Ticker

• New promotional media have been released for Hellboy II: The Golden Army: a third trailer, a featurette, and an animated prologue written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. [Collider]

• Variety’s John Anderson gives Hellboy II a (mostly) glowing review, calling it “the hipster’s hit of the summer.” He doesn’t like Luke Goss as the villainous Prince Nuada, though: “Goss embodies all the menace of Keanu Reeves.” [Variety]

• New one-sheets have been released for Punisher: War Zone. I’d post the actual images, but I’m protesting the obnoxious website watermarks. [IGN.com]

(more…)

During the “Bends vs. Johns” panel at Wizard Word Chicago, writer Brian Reed explains what truly separates the DC Universe from the Marvel Universe:

“… Wonder Woman can come home and have gorillas in her living room and you go, ‘OK, cool.’ If Professor X comes into his room and there’s gorillas in there, that’s going to be weird.”

It always comes down to apes. Those damned dirty apes …

(Via Timothy Callahan, who wonders what that all means to Marvel Apes)

Wright’s Ant-Man ‘not really an out-and-out comedy’

Edgar Wright, director of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Shaun of the Dead, says that while his adaptation of Marvel’s Ant-Man will contain humor, it won’t be a spoof.

“It’s not really an out-and-out comedy,” Wright tells PiQ magazine. “I think some people assume that it must be a spoof, but it’s not really. I guess it’s as funny as something like Iron Man is, it’s on that level of entertainment, really. It’s a big, high concept, special effects comic book adaptation, and very character-led and we found a way of… I guess in a similar way to Iron Man, the thing that worked with that and hopefully will with this is that it’s a different way of seeing a superhero origin, because you’ve seen so many of them and we really tried to figure out a fresh take on that story. So it’s definitely a Marvel film but it’s got a little twist on it in terms of the way that it plays out.”

Although IMDB lists Ant-Man’s release date as 2010, it’s not on Marvel’s official slate for that year; Thor and an Iron Man sequel are. However, if Jon Favreau’s recent comments are accurate, Ant-Man could show up in the planned Avengers feature in 2011.

Wall-E will win the weekend, but Wanted should hold its own

Disney-Pixar’s Wall-E undoubtedly will dominate the weekend box office, but Variety reports that Wanted is tracking well, and could debut as high as $40 million.

It also could eat into the audience for The Incredible Hulk, which had a domestic gross of $104.2 million as of Wednesday.

Reviews for Wanted, loosely based on the miniseries by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, have been mostly positive — 73 percent on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer — praising director Timur Bekmambetov’s visuals over the actual script.

(The poster above, found at IMP Awards, is a new one from the U.K. I like it much better than those released in the United States.)

(more…)

Game designer David Jaffe posted an open letter to Marvel on his blog, asking them to start making their games more like their comics:

I LOVE Marvel Comics and I LOVE the promise of games based on Marvel Comics. But why can’t you guys make a game that feels like a comic? I don’t mean art style wise; I don’t mean like Comix Zone with panels and cliche stuff like that. I mean feels like a comic in a story based, narrative way: a game that shows off the OTHER aspect that makes Marvel Comics so special: The characters/story. It’s not JUST about the powers, you know. But your games are always ONLY about the powers.

The thing that made Stan and co’s comics so unique back in the 60’s is he was the first guy to say, “Hey, let’s treat these stories with some respect, let’s treat these characters with respect and in doing so, we’ll grow the audience well beyond 8 year old boys- who ONLY care about the powers”….and with that thinking, the entire medium of American comics was reinvented.

As a huge comic and game fan- and as a game designer as well- I really hope Marvel stops ONLY using the HOW TO MAKE A MARVEL GAME template that seems to demand: Open City, Hero Powers, Recycled Missions ad nauseam, and a few Unique things tossed in. And I hope they stop because this template- in most cases- goes against the very thing that makes the comics so special: story.

– C.B. Cebulski teases two Spider-Man panels by Junko Mizuno.

– ComicMix talks to Neil Kleid about writing Dungeons & Dragons comics.

– Hero Happy Hour on British TV? Not quite …

– DC and Marvel don’t want to talk to Don MacPherson about subscriptions.

– Curt Holman compares Spider-Man 3 to the recent The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon.

– Funky Winkerbean does a Tales of Suspense homage. And they do it very well.

First off, I’d like to say something about the recent grumbling from your LCSs and comic buyers alike about this week’s deluge of Marvel books.  The House of Ideas is getting all they can out of the last week of June and for that, I’m sorry.  You see, it looks like Joe Quesada found out today was my birthday and decided to release all my favorite books as a present.  Sure, it’s a really expensive present that I have to pay for, sure, but still.  Thor: Ages of Thunder - Reign of Blood comes out today and any book that has an army of skeletons summoned by a jilted goddess that Thor has to defeat with the EVILEST roll call of draft animals since Santa went crazy- well, I say too much.  In any case, sorry for the mass of comics and next year I promise to have my birthday on a day that won’t mess with the shipping schedule.

Speaking of birthdays, the final issue of Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction’s Immortal Iron Fist hits shelves today, bringing us a very apropo tale of the end of Danny Rand’s momentous 33rd year.  Yep, try and deny it all he wants, but the Immortal Iron Fist turns 33 this issue as the writers and artist team that took a guy in some yellow slippers into one of the hottest and consistantly awesome books Marvel has the joy of putting out month after month.  It’s a big issue in a lot of ways, so let us pay a some homage to the little title that could, the character who’s grown within his own legacy and the co-writer that done about the same thing at the House of Ideas.

(more…)

EW.com has the first look at the alternate cover for Marvel Apes #2, and the monkey variants for six of Marvel’s August and September comics: Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #2, Punisher: War Journal #23, Daredevil #110, Incredible Hercules #121, Wolverine: First Class #6 and Cable #6.

Wolverine and X-Men cartoon will debut at Comic-Con

Although the new Wolverine and the X-Men animated series won’t air on Nicktoons until early 2009, the three-part pilot will get an early premiere on July 26 at Comic-Con International.

In the cartoon, an attack on the mansion leads to the disappearance of Prof. Xavier and Jean Grey, and the disbanding of the X-Men. But after Emma Frost locates a comatose Xavier in the care of Magneto in Genosha, the professor telepathically orders Wolverine to reassemble the X-Men to save the world from The Sentinels and the Brotherhood of Mutants.

A new trailer is available at Marvel.com.

Does ’some legal trouble’ endanger future Superman movies?

Get Smart director Peter Segal talks with AMC’s SciFi Scanner a little about Billy Batson and the Legend of Shazam, and may reveal something about the future of the Superman movie franchise. I stress may.

Addressing potential comparisons between Captain Marvel and the Man of Steel, Segal says: “I’ll name two incredibly successful comics right now that are about a millionaire who wants to fight crime and uses technology to build suits and gadgets to help him do so. But quite frankly, I was concerned: Superman literally squashed Captain Marvel in the ’40s. There are a lot of Captain Marvel fans who are saying he got a raw deal. And since there seems to be some legal trouble in ever bringing another Superman to the screen, now feels like the right time.”

That last part, about “some legal trouble,” raises an eyebrow. I presume Segal is referring to the copyright ruling in the Siegels’ lawsuit against Warner Bros., but that would be the first I’ve seen of the decision serving as an obstacle to further Superman movies. If Segal a.) is referring to the ruling and b.) has his facts straight, this is a pretty big deal.

(more…)