On Jason Aaron’s blog, Scalped artist R.M. Guéra discusses the music that influences his work on the Vertigo crime series: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Nina Simone, Johnny Cash and more.

Who the heck is Lou Dernow? The alter-ego of Marcus Henderson, who recorded many of the tracks you can hear in Activision’s Guitar Hero games. Marvel.com has a Q&A up with him about a variety of topics, including 80s comics:

Henderson: And you know, I’ve always dreamt that if I ever had the chance to be part of a comic book…I have my alter-ego: Lou Dernow. You know, “louder now” [chuckles]. It’s a lot like music. It takes a fertile imagination and a lot of creativity. And the link between music, video games and comic books is the imagination. It’s influenced everything for me.

Marvel.com: What books are you into now?
Henderson: I’m kinda one of those guys who is still into the old stuff, and it’s not because I’m sitting at home reading POWER PACK or anything. I enjoy finding old THOR comics. I really dig rereading SECRET WARS.

A Danish court has ordered one of that country’s largest Internet service providers to block users from accessing The Pirate Bay, the embattled BitTorrent tracker.

DMT2-Tele2 was ordered shut down access last week after the court ruled that The Pirate Bay, whose servers were based in Sweden, facilitates the “unauthorized distribution of copyright protected works.” The ISP is expected to decide next week whether to challenge the ruling.

In response to the decision, The Pirate Bay has set up another site that can be accessed by Tele2 customers.

Last week Swedish authorities charged four operators of The Pirate Bay with “promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws.” After the police raid, the site’s servers reportedly were moved out of the country.

(Some links via Dirk Deppey)

In what could be a major blow to illegal downloading, Swedish authorities today charged four operators of The Pirate Bay, the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, with “promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws.”

If found guilty, the four men — Hans Fredrik Neij, Per Svartholm Warg, Peter Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundstroem — face a year in jail.

Sweden, which has some of the loosest copyright protections in Europe, has been considered a haven for torrent trackers. (When ComicSearch ran afoul of Marvel in December, the site’s administrator pledged, “I’m now looking at moving my hosting to Sweden.”)

Prosecutors say The Pirate Bay generates about $4.5 million in annual revenue through advertising.

–Secret Headquarters in L.A. is now offering their very cool “God Save Stan Lee” T-shirts online.

–Metro Pulse has a story on the late illustrator, children’s author Jim Flora.

–Steve Ellis walks us through the process of creating High Moon, their webcomic on Zuda.

–Florida Today offers literary alternatives to reruns and reality TV, such as the Heroes graphic novel for fans of Heroes and Fables for fans of Pushing Daisies.

–Eighth grader Morghen Philippi writes about Martin Luther King’s “Justice League.”

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–This isn’t quite the new Indiana Jones poster:

It’s actually for Morgan Spurlock’s new film, Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? Spurlock, of course, is the mad genius behind Super Size Me and FX’s 30 Days.

–IESB asks Jason Statham what comic character he’d like to play:

IESB: Anyone in particular?

Statham: Let me think… It’s funny, I took a meeting for Sub-Mariner. I don’t know if I’d look right running around in a tight speedo with wings on my ankles but there’s so many cool fucking characters. The Hulk, I’ve always been a big fan of but Ed Norton’s doing that. And rightly so. He’s fucking amazing. And he’s working with Louis Leterrier, believer it or not who did The Transporter. I’m trying to think of what would be a good comic book character for me to play. You know, there’s talk of them redoing The Crow. That was a good movie with Brandon Lee, although that was years ago. So if that one comes my way, bang! You know, there’s so many comic book movies out there and most of the time there’s only a handful of people who can do them any justice. Hopefully, they’ll come my way for one of them.

I don’t really see him as either the Sub-Mariner or The Crow … who do you think he should play?

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On his blog, Sean Phillips posts his artwork for The Criterion Collection edition of Blast of Silence, Allen Baron’s 1961 noir thriller. Phillips also previews the first pages of a four-page comic adaptation included with the DVD. Beautiful stuff.

Darwyn Cooke and Danijel Zezelj illustrated covers for Criterion in 2006.

The Malaysian government has banned a rock singer from television for three months after he removed his shirt last week during a live TV concert to reveal a bright red Superman logo on his bare chest.

Faizal Tahir, 29, stripped off his jacket, shirt and belt and threw them into the audience during a Jan. 13 concert in Kuala Lumpur.

According to The Associated Press, the government in the Muslim-majority nation maintains strict guidelines for entertainers, who “must cover up from chest to knee onstage. Jumping, hugging, kissing and throwing objects at the audience are prohibited.”

The concert was broadcast on the private television network 8TV, which also was sanctioned by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. The network is barred from broadcasting any concerts for three months.

On the movie’s production blog, director Zack Snyder shares some of his storyboards from Watchmen.

–Singer John Mayer has apparently been recruited into the Joker’s army.

–Patrick Stevens shares Patrick Stewart’s top five roles, which include a certain mutant, a starship captain and a Simpsons character.

–Comic-con spokesperson David Glanzer says the show hasn’t been affected by the writer’s strike. “Nobody’s indicating anything to us other than what’s standard.” The San Diego Union Tribune article goes on to say:

Glanzer agreed that glitz and glamour have become essential to the Comic-Con experience. Without new Tinseltown products to tout, the Con would have a different vibe.

But, Glanzer insisted, not that much different: “We always have a tremendous amount of comics-oriented stuff. Look at our schedule – 90 percent involves non-Hollywood stuff.”

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It just doesn’t feel like the holidays until Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer deliver the annual Venture Bros. Christmas song. This year, it’s The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend singing Fairytale of New York.

Previous years have featured the entire cast performing Do They Know It’s Christmas? (Venture Aid 2006), The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend doing their best David Bowie and Bing Crosby with Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth, and The Monarch and Henchmen Nos. 21 and 24 belting out Hard Candy Christmas.

But wait! There’s more! On his blog, Publick shows off some still shots from the upcoming Season 3 (yay!) but reveals that Stephen Colbert won’t be reprising his role as Professor Impossible (boo!).

I don’t have the latest issue of Spin Magazine, but according to several blog posts that popped up last night it announces a new Image Comics anthology, Comic Book Tattoo, which will feature stories inspired by Tori Amos songs. Rantz Hoseley is editing and the book will be out in time for Comic-Con International next year.

Newsarama contributor Chris Arrant will write one of the stories:

As reported in the newest issue of SPIN magazine, musician Tori Amos is coming to comics in the form of a comic book anthology graphic novel entitled Comic Book Tattoo. A variety of comics talent are working on stories inspired by specific songs from Tori’s album, and I’m one of them (not the songs… the talent!) Artist Star St. Germain and I are working on a favorite song of mine that I can’t disclose just yet.

Lea Hernandez and Neil Kleid will also have stories in the book.

Update: As will Colleen Doran.

Update 2: And Leah Moore, John Reppion and Pia Guerra.

Gizmodo has a fun fake news story about Stormtroopers arresting Santa Claus.

– Cancer Vixen creator Marisa Acocella Marchetto is blogging about cancer for healthcentral.com. (Hat tip)

– The New York Times gives some love to New York’s The Comic Book Club. Congrats on your one-year anniversary, guys!

– Writer Brian Wood (DMZ, Northlanders) has moved his forum from Ning to a new location. Adjust your bookmarks!

– Lynda Barry has a MySpace page dedicated to her cartooning workshop.

– Douglas Wolk has listed his favorite comics of the year.

– Harvey Pekar and Nick Bertozzi did a comic on Ohio and the upcoming presidential election.

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Among his other accolades, Craig Thompson can now add “Grammy-Award nominated” to his list. That’s right, the Blankets creator was nominated last week for “Best Recording Package” for his work on Menomena’s latest album, Friend and Foe. The Oregonian tracked down Thompson to get his reaction:

Q. What was your process in working with Menomena? Did you immerse yourself in the album?
A. The album wasn’t finished. There wasn’t even a title for the album at that point; it’s kind of hard when you’re trying to come up with themes. But we all got together and we’re brainstoming ideas. All the ideas they came up with were typical Menomena, sort of artsy fartsy, push the boundary sort of thing. And it was Brett that came up with the idea of the die-cut and the rotating disc moving. But then I just ran with that. There was some other even crazier ideas. But they were crazy in the sense of, ‘How can we get that realized?’.

TorrentFreak reports that the latest issue of Donald Duck magazine in The Netherlands depicts Donald and his nephews as music pirates who are threatened by the head of a record label — one Scrooge McDuck.

According to the website, the comic strip provides a lesson in copyright as Huey, Dewey and Lewey illegally download an album because they’re low on cash; they’ll buy it later when they have the funds. However, Donald decides there’s money to be made by copying and selling CDs. The boys are horrified, and tell him about copyright, adding, “If nobody buys CDs anymore, the record labels and artists will become beggars.”

Of course, Donald’s plan is thwarted by Uncle Scrooge, who warns him that’ll he’ll have to pay a hefty fine if he doesn’t stop pirating music.

Although some Dutch websites suspect anti-piracy group BREIN was behind the strip, the magazine’s editor said there was no outside involvement.

In related news, an Italian court has ordered Donald and his girlfriend Daisy, Mickey Mouse and Tweety Bird to testify in a counterfeiting trial.

Lawyers say the summons, which cites the fictional characters as damaged parties, seems to be a clerical error. The criminal trial involves a Chinese man accused of counterfeiting Disney and Warner Bros. products.

First Too Much Coffee Man the Opera, now this. Jimmy Gownley sent me a note earlier this week letting me know that his all-ages comic book series, Amelia Rules, is being made into a musical by Small Pond Productions, a theater group based in Marlborough, NH. The show was written and directed by one Michael Cohen and will have its debut Dec. 6-8:

Adapted from a Christmas themed story that appeared in the first Amelia volume, “Amelia Rules: The Whole World’s Crazy,” the musical relates how 9-year-old superhero-wannabe Reggie Grabinsky enlists his superhero crew to try to prove Santa is a fraud.

Music and lyrics for the show are by New Hampshire musician/composer Michael Cohen.

“As editor of the Amelia Books I’ve been with these characters since their inception, and watched them grow and mature over the years,” says Cohen. “Knowing them so well made writing the songs for this musical so much easier, more like writing songs for old friend.”

You can read the full press release after the jump. (more…)

Threads of Red Jack, written by Daniel Kibblesmith and drawn by K. Thor Jensen, will join the webcomics collective The Chemistry Set. This isn’t the first appearance of the title character, as Red Jack previously appeared in a Dresden Dolls video:

We’ve seen several articles about television writers moonlighting in comics, but now The New York Times looks at musicians who are doing the same: Gerard Way (The Umbrella Academy), Avril Lavigne (Make 5 Wishes), Percy Carey (Sentences), and Dave Stewart (Walk In).

The article also mentions the announced Vertigo graphic novel based on Neil Young’s Greendale album, and a planned Virgin Comics miniseries that involves … Duran Duran. Oh, please, let it be based on Hungry Like the Wolf. And subtitled, Do-do do do, do do do, do do do, do do do, do do.

Wrapping up its three-day celebration of the release of Tekkon Kinkreet on DVD, Frames Per Second posts a video set to Shinichi Osawa remix of Plaid’s White’s Dream, from the movie’s soundtrack. The video is directed by Tekkon Kinkreet‘s Michael Arias.