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!

Eisner winner Chuck BB is working on a comic starring the rock band Hinder for Devil’s Due Publishing.

“The band’s ability to tell stories in their songs makes this a good marriage,” Stephen Christy of Devil’s Due Publishing told USA Today. “It doesn’t hurt that there’s always a ton of hot girls hanging around them.” No release date for the book was given.

(Via Irene Gallo)

A few minutes after I finished posting that old Batman clip in my previous post, Jeff Trexler emailed me to let me know that Neal Hefti, who wrote the theme to the 1960s Batman song, died on Saturday.

The New York Times reports that the 85-year-old composer died “suddenly from an undetermined cause.” In addition to his work for Hollywood on shows like Batman and The Odd Couple, he was also a noted jazz trumpeter, arranger, conductor and record producer who worked with Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Mel Tormé and Tony Bennett.

“He told me he tore up more paper on Batmanthan on any other work he ever did,” his son Paul told the Times. “He had to find something that worked with the lowest common denominator, so it would appeal to kids, yet wouldn’t sound stupid. What he came up with was a 12-bar blues with a guitar hook and one word.”

KISS is joining Indiana Jones, Optimus Prime and Spider-Man by being immortalized in potato form — as a set of Mr. Potato Heads. The toys hit the stage in 2009.

Via Pop Candy

I’m pretty sure that “What comic-book character would you like to play?” has replaced “Would you like to direct some day?” — or maybe “So, who are you wearing?” — as the question to be lobbed at Hollywood types.

As evidence, I present MTV’s Splash Page, which corners Garbage singer-turned-actor Shirley Manson, who’s in her first role in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

“I’d love to play Catwoman,” says Manson, who throws her name into the hat along with everyone from Angelina Jolie to … Cher.

“She’s supposed to be difficult,” she says, referring to Catwoman, not Jolie or Cher. “I just think Catwoman hasn’t really been fully realized yet. Certainly I haven’t seen it. Halle Berry wasn’t quite right. And while I liked Michelle Pfeiffer, to a certain degree, I didn’t think she was dangerous. She was more cute than fierce. Not enough of the beast in her. If you’re going to embody a cartoon character like that, you have to be a bit more inexplicable, intangible. Make it more of a mystery.”

I first heard the words “Chumble Spuzz” at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con, during the SLG panel. “I like anything that makes me laugh,” SLG publisher Dan Vado said about the book, which at the time was being serialized on their EyeMelt website before the collection came out. He promised a pig possessed by Satan and an over-the-top story, which is exactly what creator Ethan Nicolle delivered in that first volume.

The second volume of Chumble Spuzz came out right before this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, featuring many of the same characters in different but equally as over-the-top situations. Heck, maybe even more so. I interviewed Nicolle over email last week about both books, conventions, poop jokes and working with his brother.

JK: So first off, San Diego … how did the show go for you?

Ethan: I’ve been going to San Diego every year since 2002. This was my first year with books published on SLG, along with a stack of books over at Bad Karma Productions in small press. I brought my brother along, who co-wrote on Chumble Spuzz book 2. We had a blast. I made some awesome contacts this year, and it was awesome how many people knew about my book. BJ Novak, from The Office, stopped my table at the SLG booth. That was cool. But I think the best part of Comic Con is always the group of close geek friends I have that I don’t get to see but about once a year. And slave Leias.

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Comic retailer Joe Ferrara, owner of the awesome shop Atlantis Fantasyworld in Santa Cruz, Calif., will attempt to “set a world record for a solo performance by an individual in a club setting without repeating a song or using sheet music or lyric sheets.” He starts at 10 a.m. Sept. 14 and ends at 10 p.m. in the Rock Room Lounge at the Shadowbrook Restaurant in Capitola, Calif.

From the press release:

September is National Prostate Cancer awareness month. “The average woman has a working knowledge of the facts about breast cancer,” says Ferrara, a three-year survivor of prostate cancer. “The average man knows almost nothing about prostate cancer. I hope to change that.”

The event promises to be a challenge. “I know over 400 songs,” says fifty-nine year old Ferrara. “I play folk, standards, soft rock, show tunes and classic rock so material is not the problem. However, I’m only allowed a five-minute break every hour! I plan to save them up and only take four breaks but we’ll see if Mother Nature has other plans!” Ferrara hopes folks will take a few minutes out of their day to help him set the record. “Come for five minutes or five hours it doesn’t matter. Request a song and even sing a long”, he says. “Just come have a good time. I can’t set the record without an audience.”

Information about prostate cancer will be available during the event. Members of the Santa Cruz County Prostate Cancer Support Group will also be in attendance to answer any questions

More information can be found on the Atlantis Fantasyworld site. You might recognize the shop, as it was featured in the film Lost Boys.

More details here.

– Stephen DeStefano shares a Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend commission.

– The Hugo Awards were announced this past weekend in Denver.

– As were the Doug Wright Awards (though not in Denver).

– Tom Spurgeon talks CCI with David Glanzer.

– Alley Oop turned 75. I didn’t even know it was still around.

– A Matt Bors’ cartoon makes it all the way to Gitmo and the hands of Salim Hamdan.

– Own an iPhone? Like comics? Bookmark this site.

– It’s not comics, but I liked this MTV story about fan reaction to Diablo III screenshots and the developers explanations as to why they did what they did.

– Arvid Nelson and Jesse Falcon join the Comic Book Club this Tuesday.

– io9 picks the VP candidates. Yes, it’s comics related.

– Cartoons for grown-ups.

– Trent Reznor thought about turning Year Zero into a graphic novel. Instead, he’s talking to HBO.

– Mike Sterling presents “Things not to say to a comic book shop employee.”

– Where were you?

Compiled by JK and Chris.

Isaac Hayes dies at 65.

What better way to welcome a new graphic novel about a band touring after the end of the world than to throw a party featuring bands, the creators and prizes? The Beguiling in Toronto is putting together a gig featuring the creators of Apocalipstix, Ray Fawkes and Cameron Stewart, along with local bands Terror Lake and DAME.

Full press release after the jump …

(more…)

• Hugh Jackman’s appearance at the tail end of this afternoon’s 20th Century Fox panel sent the 6,000-seat Hall H into “pandemonium,” according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Biz blog and EW’s Popwatch. Jackman, there to promote X-Men Origins: Wolverine, left the stage momentarily to shakes hands with Wolverine co-creator Len Wein. (The panel apparently was delayed because scaffolding supporting drapes collapsed in the rear of the room.)

• On Tor.com’s new blog, David Moldawer reports that in this morning’s “75 Years of Doc Savage” panel, producer Michael Uslan “let slip” that there’s a Man of Bronze movie in the works.

• As predicted, Twilight devotees were out in full force, jamming Hall H for the Summit Entertainment panel. MTV Movies blog says that, “Thousands of fans stretched nearly a mile, many of them lining up Wednesday evening.”

• This is either some strange harmonic nerd convergence, or a WTF moment: Watchmen director Zack Snyder tells MTV’s Splash Page that My Chemical Romance — fronted by Umbrella Academy writer Gerard Way — will cover Bob Dylan for the movie’s soundtrack.

• Scott Robins, who used to write the All-Ages blog, is covering Comic-Con for Good Comics for Kids. Welcome back, Scott.

Benderspink seeks out Red 5′s Zombies of Mass Destruction

Production company Benderspink continues its comic-book roll, picking up the film rights to Red 5′s new horror/action series ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction #1.

Created by Underworld screenwriter and Marvel’s New Warriors scribe Kevin Grevioux, ZMD is the story of a government weapons program in which zombies are dropped into war zones at night to infect the enemy population. To control the spread, the walking dead are engineered to be photosensitive and dissolve with the rising sun. But when one fails to self-destruct in the Middle East, an elite team of soliders must infiltrate hostile territory to stop a growing zombie army.

Benderspink also has set up Y: The Last Man and Drafted at New Line, Pencilneck at Lionsgate and Pet Robots at Disney.

The Ticker

• Producer Andrew Lazar wants to film Jonah Hex in New Orleans, for a potential 2010 release. [Times-Picayune]

• Screenwriter David S. Goyer says he and director Christopher Nolan have “talked loosely” about a villain and theme for a third Batman movie. [MTV Movies Blog]

(more…)

The Observer’s Mark Kermode spotlights Tank Girl and Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett, England’s “greatest graphic art rebel.”

• A resolution will be introduced next week in Columbus (Ohio) City Council recognizing the career of Bone creator Jeff Smith.

• James Jean points out that the Watchmen trailer provides a glimpse of the Vargas-esque portrait of Sally Jupiter (above) that he created for the movie.

• Genre-book publisher Tor has relaunched its website, which now features a blog — with contributions by the likes of Bruce Baugh, Irene Gallo and Jim Henley.

• The New York Times looks at efforts to adapt Neil Young’s Greendale concept album into a theater piece and a graphic novel — the latter set for release next fall from Vertigo. There’s also a glimpse at Cliff Chiang’s character sketches.

• Colleen Coover and Takeshi Miyazawa show off photos of their artwork now gracing the windows of Challengers Comics + Conversation in Chicago.

• I can’t resist a list: Mental Floss has “26 Important Comics,” from Action Comics #1 to Maus, and PETA runs down the “Top 10 Animal-Friendly Super-Heroes.”

Entertainment Weekly talks with Alan Moore about the upcoming Watchmen movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century, his upcoming novel Jerusalem, and his love of The Wire and South Park:

Don’t you have the slightest curiosity about what Watchmen director Zack Snyder is doing with your work?
I would rather not know.

He’s supposed to be a very nice guy.
He may very well be, but the thing is that he’s also the person who made 300. I’ve not seen any recent comic book films, but I didn’t particularly like the book 300. I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid. I know that that’s not what people going in to see a film like 300 are thinking about but…I wasn’t impressed with that…. I talked to [director] Terry Gilliam in the ’80s, and he asked me how I would make Watchmen into a film. I said, ”Well actually, Terry, if anybody asked me, I would have said, ‘I wouldn’t.”’ And I think that Terry [who aborted his attempted adaptation of the book] eventually came to agree with me. There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can’t.

Related: Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl) says Watchmen‘s ending stays true to the comic

This isn’t really comic-related (although I did find it on Ben Templesmith’s blog), but if you’re into things like barbarians, zombies, buxom women or Perestroika, you might like this music video by the Russian metal band ANJ:

GORBACHOV: THE MUSIC VIDEO – BIGGER AND RUSSIANER from Tom Stern on Vimeo.

Seriously. It’s called J-Stache, and according to Billboard, “Oates is portrayed as a modern-day family man and finds himself enticed back to the rock star life by his mustache, which is voiced by comedian Dave Attell.”

The cartoon does not have a home yet, but could end up on a network or on the Web. More from the story:

The pilot, which Primary Wave estimates will be between six and 10 minutes long, is being storyboarded, and the aim is to have it completed in the next two months. It will portray Oates opening a new wing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that focuses on mustachioed musicians.

Suddenly, a dying David Crosby appears and with his last breath warns Oates of a mysterious secret group of mustache wearers bent on killing other mustache wearers. As actor Tom Selleck attempts to escape from the latest murder scene, Oates summons his own mustache with a fist pump that simultaneously changes his clothes from conservative attire to pink pants and white boots.

This has Adult Swim written all over it.

EW.com talks with rapper/actor Method Man about his eponymous graphic novel, to be released next month by Hachette. The comic — conceived by Method Man, scripted by David Atchison and illustrated by Sanford Greene — stars Method Man’s alter ego Peerless Paine, a “murder priest” who battles the demonic spirit Lilith.

The website also has a 10-page excerpt of Method Man.