(Click the image above for a larger version of the strip.)

WORLD OF HURT - The Thrill-Seekers - Episode 29: “Feeling the Heat”

I was glad for an opportunity to shift the scene after the long mini-arc of “Tell The Truth, Shame The Devil….”  Pastor still remains an enigmatic phantom to the Thrill-Seekers at this point, but Charles is sensible enough to review him as a legitimate threat.  I enjoy setting up Ned for the big fall (but not in the same sense as Duke) that is to come.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT - The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

Go for the drawing of Batman eating cake Batmanly…: Stay for Kurt Busiek’s essay on why Batman isn’t the Green Lantern of Sector 2814, and extended references to comic book characters and concepts as cakes and frosting which have made me very, very hungry for cake.

“Five Worst Batman Villains”: I imagine fans will find a lot to bicker with Tim O’Neil about in his list of the very worst Batman villains—and pretty thorough explanations for why is each is included. After all, The Joker’s on that list. O’Neil makes some pretty convincing arguments though, and I wholeheartedly agree with a couple of these (Particularly Ra’s al Ghul. That guy’s been  in more Batman comics than Alfred these the last few years). In defense of Mr. Zsasz though (well, in defense of his creators Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle), I think he was created just to be a one-off villain used in “The Last Arkham” and then forgotten about, and it’s all the other creators who keep insisting on using him that have made him so terrible (Also, in his first appearance, he dressed up in tuxedos and wore a top hat…how come he’s always running around nearly nude now?)

Maybe Watchmen spin-offs won’t be so bad after all: Tom Spurgeon has a pitch for a four-issue limited series featuring a character you probably didn’t see coming.

“Smallville’s two-hour ‘event,’ the introduction of the Justice Society of America… was alternately endearingly clunky and just plain old clunky”:
Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker on the Smallville JSA special.  Isn’t it sorta weird that the Smallville-iverse is on its second Star-Spangled Kid  before there was even a Superman?

True horror: So, you thought Michael Leavitt’s three-foot-tall, fully-articulated wooden R. Crumb sculpture was horrifying when you first saw it? Well, wait till you see it move! (Via Flog!)

As the pre-release hype machine gears up for Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman, the director of The Rocketeer, October Sky, and Jurassic Park 3, is letting slip some details regarding his next little low-key indie project, Captain America: The First Avenger.

Gadfly/columnist Devin Faraci at CHUD is breaking the news that Hitler-smacking super-team The Invaders will not only appear in the film, but they will also play a major role in the story. What is unclear is just who Johnston’s Invaders Roster will include, although Faraci does a pretty good rundown of the rights entanglements involved with characters like The Sub Mariner and The Human Torch.

This comes hot on the heels of the junket confirmation of The Red Skull’s presence as Cap’s primary villain in the film. Could Master Man and Baron Blood be far behind? Wolfgang Von Strucker.

Of course with Johnston directing The Wolfman, maybe we can look forward to something like this…

For a show with some serious comics street cred to start, this series has done a pretty good job of shedding a lot of it as it’s gone. After losing showrunner Marc Guggenheim near the beginning of the season, ABC’s FlashForward–which stars Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle’s John Cho and Lost’s Dominic Monaghan–is saying good-bye to David S. Goyer, according to Entertainment Weekly.

ABC has had a hard time promoting both FlashForward and its other tentpole genre title, V. In spite of pretty good critical and fan reception, ratings have dropped to Heroes levels this season, and a lot of experts are speculating that they’ll continue to sink next month when the show comes back from hiatus. It’s unclear who will take Goyer’s place as showrunner; he’s reportedly leaving to focus on his feature film career.

In addition to co-creating the JSA relaunch with James Robinson, Goyer is known in comics circles for writing, directing or producing screenplays based on Nick Fury, Batman, X-Men, Ghost Rider and Blade. According to IMDB, he’s attached to the upcoming Green Arrow film Super Max as well as Y: The Last Man and X-Men Origins: Magneto.

Cory and Eric’s father must just be constantly looking for an opportunity to delve into a complicated geopolitical topic and/or an excuse to tell the life story of one of his ancestors.

How else to explain the fact that when he and his wife end up refereeing a conflict between their boys, involving Eric stopping Cory from buying a particular type of candy, because the older, wise brother knew it contained an ingredient the younger one didn’t really like, he boils it down thusly:

You know, you boys aren’t the first to argue over this principle…You’re arguing whether or not one entity—in your case, a person, but sometimes we’re talking about a country—can take away another’s capacity to act on its own choices.

After a little back and forth between the four members of the family, the patriarch launches into the story of Corporal Peter Crogan of the Foreign Legion, who naturally had to face the issues revolving around the ethics of imperialism as part of his job, occupying and defending swathes of North Africa for France, whether the native people wanted him to do so or not.

If I were Cory or Eric, I’d be afraid to open my big mouth around my dad…or maybe not, depending on how great a storyteller he is.

Writer/artist Chris Schweizer cuts away from the kitchen scene set-up in Crogan’s March (Oni Press) to present the story of Crogan as an unfiltered comics story, so we don’t hear exactly what the dad says or how he says it, but he must know how to tell a story, given the wide-eyed, slack-jawed looks of awe on the two boys’ faces when we return to the kitchen after hearing about Crogan’s story.

Schweizer, however,  sure knows how to tell one.

Despite the issue that initiates the tale’s telling, it’s not till around page 90 or so that the issue of imperialism comes up, and if the story is about that at all, it’s more of a meditation on it than message-oriented.

Two of Crogan’s superior officers have strong opinions on the matter. The mean, tight-ass, less well-liked of the two believes France has a duty to help the occupied because France knows what’s best, while the popular, devil-may-care officer doesn’t seem to care one way or the other, although he sort of hates the Africans. Of the two, the former is presented as the more sane of the two, and thus more likely to be “right,” but then, things end badly for him and just about everyone else in the story.

As for Crogan, he basically just tries to muddle though and takes every opportunity to help someone that comes up, his beliefs on the philosophical questions his descendents would argue over kept to himself, his actions providing the only clues.

That probably makes Crogan’s March sound like a much duller book than it actually is. These questions give the work an aura of smarts, but it’s first and foremost an occasionally quite funny action adventure story.

Crogan and his troop have just survived a sandstorm when we pick up with them, and we follow him and the other colorful characters into town, into a bar brawl and into one battle after another. Ultimately Crogan is captured, and must rescue and lead a small band of people who don’t much care for the French to safety.

It’s terrifically exciting stuff, and Schweizer draws the characters just as well through his writing as he does on paper. His character design chops are pretty incredible, as each and every character is given their own highly-exaggerated, cartoony-to-the-point of caricature design, and yet they all look like they belong in the same world together.

The cartoony features of the characters allows Schweizer to get away with a lot of emotional storytelling (and sly jokes) in the artwork itself, as the funny faces communicate so much all by themselves without need of dialogue or too many panels being spent on them. It also lends the book a disarming quality—the gap between the sort of story it looks like and the issues it ends up grappling with is wide enough that Crogan’s March is awfully subversive, if you care to think about it too deeply.

And if you’d rather just enjoy a rollicking adventure yarn with a ton of loose, fun drawings, well, it’s that too.

This is actually the second of Schweizer’s Crogan’s books, following 2008’s Crogan’s Vengeance, although it stands completely on its own, and is a fine starting point to Schweizer’s historical adventure stories featuring the Crogan bloodline, and more such stories are currently being created. Crogan’s Loyalty is scheduled for a 2011 release.

Aw thanks, Boom Studios! I didn’t know you cared! The publisher, which currently holds the licenses on a bunch of Disney characters and concepts and has been making fine use of many of them, has put together a heck of a Valentine’s Day present for fans of classic comics featuring the core Disney mouse and duck characters.

The 130-page, six-story collection is similar in scope and format to the publisher’s 2009 Walt Dinsey’s Christmas Classics collection, with the stories selected comprising a sampling of work from various eras, creators and countries of origin (In fact, every decade between the ‘40s and the ‘80s is represented by a story in here).

The highlight is probably the lead story, 1941’s “Love Trouble” by Floyd Gottfredson, Merril de Maris and Bill Wright. At 36 pages, it’s the longest piece, and features the story of Minnie finding a new, much taller, more charming, more talented and more well-off boyfriend than Mickey, Montmorecny Rodent (although he pronounces it “Rodawn”). Humiliated over and over, and unable to compete, Mickey fights fire with fire by taking up with a beautiful, rich, blonde mouse new to town, and then proceeds to couple-stalk Minnie and Rodent, driving Minnie insane with envy.

Given the way they behave to one another, and use other people (er, “people” probably isn’t the right word…), I’m not sure what the two mice see in each other, but I suppose they’re better off together than inflicting their social dysfunctions on others. Just I suppose I have now thought way too much about the love lives of two cartoon mice from a fast-paced, lovingly and energetically drawn screwball comedy comic strip.

That’s followed immediately by good duck story by the good duck artist Carl Barks. The only story included actually set on Valentine’s Day, it involves Donald’s first day on the job as a mailman, being forced to deliver a valentine to Daisy from his own romantic rival, Gladstone Gander.

An Uncle Scrooge story from 1963, two short gag stories involving Mickey and Donald, and a 1988 “imaginary” story in which Donald dreams his entire courtship, marriage to and life with Daisy round out the collection.

As with most such wide-ranging anthologies, chances every reader will find some stories they like more than others within, but if you love comics, you should find a few stories in here to warm your heart.

With Warner Brothers’ The Time-Traveler’s Wife being released on DVD, Blu-Ray and digital download on February 9 (good flick, by the way—check it out), I thought I’d take a little look at one of the nagging questions from the Johns/Katz/Jurgens run on Booster Gold: Who is Rip Hunter’s mother? As revealed in Booster Gold #1000000, Booster is (unbeknownst even to himself) the father of the enigmatic Time Master…but without a consistent romantic interest, fans have been left to speculate as to who Rip’s mother is—or if we’ll even ever see her.

UPDATED on February 9 to reflect changes seen in the Booster Gold #29 preview pages.

· Sondra Crain – Little is known about this character yet, even her name (although it appears in the preview pages for this week’s upcoming issue as “Sondra Crain”), but it’s clear from Michelle’s observation of the time screens at Vanishing Point that this woman is going to be very important.
Why not her? Well, she’s a new character, and there’s nothing much to suggest her as a candidate, besides the fact that she’s new, female and apparently important.

· Trixie Collins – Booster’s secretary through the first volume of the comic and the original Goldstar, Jurgens recently told The Gold Exchange that we won’t be seeing her anytime soon—but since there’s a following for the character among the hardcore Booster fans, and it seems from future solicitations that we’ll be short a girl in a Goldstar costume soon.
Why not her? Dan Jurgens told The Gold Exchange last month that there were no plans for Trixie in the immediate future.

· Blair Butler – A bigtime Booster Gold fan in real life, a woman named “Blair” has been Booster’s unseen date a few times lately.
Why not her? Rip doesn’t seem to care if they ever get around to their date. Seems like if there were destiny at play, he’d be more determined to see it happen.

· Fire – This relationship was teased a little bit in the Giffen/DeMatteis “I Can’t Believe it’s not the Justice League” arc of JLA: Classified, and there was a little bit of dipping their toes in the pool during The OMAC Project miniseries. It’s been mostly forgotten since then, but you never know what might happen. With a JLI mini coming up, and Guy back with Ice, these characters could have some hilarious double-dates.
Why not her? The relationship between the two really hasn’t been touched on at all in this title, and it seems likely that Rip’s mother will be human.

· Lady Chronos – She’s got a mean-on for Booster Gold and little is known about her; it’s not like superheroes haven’t been known to use sex and love to “turn” a villain before. Plus, Rick Remender has mentioned having long-term plans for a Booster/Chronos story and he was very focused on the Booster/Rip relationship in the arc he wrote.
Why not her? The relationship between the Chronos twins and Booster wasn’t dealt with in Jurgens’ or Johns’ runs on the title; Jurgens was, in fact, pretty dismissive of Chronos when the two appeared together.

· Wonder Woman – Hey, you never know! She’s functionally immortal, so she could have come across Michael at any point in his personal timeline. Also, he’s consistently had a crush on her (even if it’s just a tiny one) across both the Giffen/DeMatteis and Jurgens/Johns iterations of the character over the years.
Why not her? It’s pretty damned unlikely that Diana would give Booster a chance. Or that DC would let Jurgens and company do it.

· The girl from Booster Gold #20 – A female character who had a little sexual tension with Booster, and was created by Keith Giffen? Maybe. Also, Rip Hunter’s early adventures took place in the ‘60s (when they were written), and although as a time-traveler he could get around just fine, it’s possible that his first adventures happened in the ‘60s simply because he was getting old enough to have them.
Why not her? She’s not in current continuity, which makes her harder to position as a character who gets page-time…and besides that, Booster going back in time to knock boots with someone would probably be verboten under Rip’s current set of rules.

· Liri Lee – One of the Linear Men, and a time-traveler created by Jurgens, she’s been the subject of a lot of fan theories since the revelation that Rip is Booster’s kid.
Why not her? Comments made by the characters seem to suggest that when the Linear Men reappear, any surviving members of their team will be more at odds with Rip and Booster than on their team.

· Gladys – The rich, old lady who apparently took Booster as a trophy husband in the Formerly Known as the Justice League miniseries seems as likely a candidate as any, right? I mean—it’s his wife and all!
Why not her? First of all—menopause. I think she’s been referred to as being a senior citizen. Second—I don’t see even her existence as being in keeping with Jurgens’ approach to the character. If he didn’t use her so far, or get rid of her expressly, it seems like he’s just letting that story beat die quietly.

Also, check out Knights of the Dinner Table 158.  My pals Don Thomas, James Burns, John McGuire and myself got to do a Heroes of the Hackleague back-up strip.  Three pages of fun in one of my favorite comics!  It was an honor to play with their characters.

Jamie Cosley, famed webcomic artist and writer of such hits as More Than Sparrows and Nobody Likes Tony Pony, is launching a brand-new comic strip on Valentine’s Day, but you can see samples here!

“This Is How We Met” is a bizarre and yet somewhat random comic strip that centers around the life of a little Humpty Dumpty-like character and his interactions with several of his friends including Tony Pony, Pee Wee Schooner and Nippy Wallaboosh.  You just got to love the influences of Jack Kent, Walt Kelly, Tony Millionaire (who was just featured in a blog@) and James Kochalka.

Of course the company he keeps isn’t too shabby either. In addition to working with Art Baltazar and Franco (aww, yeah!)  at Blindwolf Studios, he joined forces with three other cartoonists to form Crashland Studio.

When launched, you can check out the strip here, and I’m sure it’ll join the ranks as one of my favorites.

Which is why this coloring tutorial by The Boys colorist Tony Avina is so interesting! Colorists really can make or break an art style — and there are a lot of different styles, whether it’s more photo-realistic, or expressionistic, or just plain flat. (For example, I wrote in yesterday’s Best Shots that colorist Peter Steigerwald made Art Adams’ work look more contemporary and vibrant than ever. Take a look, see what you think.) Artists, what do you think? What kind of tools do you use for your color work?

Were any of you wondering if Disney’s ownership of Marvel was going to result in tamer imagery and more kid-friendly comics?: I think that one scene in this week’s issue of Siege oughta answer that question pretty decisively, huh?

Something interesting almost happened in Blondie this week, but then didn’t: That’s okay though, as R.C. Harvey took the opportunity to explore some of the visual peculiarities of Dagwood Bumstead’s character design in this piece for The Comics Journal.

Three great things that go AWESOME together: John Porcellino, Devil Dinosaur and Morrissey. God I love you, Internet.

Armagideon Time celebrates the month of February in the traditional way: By posting a panel of Jack of Hearts every day of the month. Yeah, that’s right—Jack of Hearts. It just goes to show that every character is someone’s favorite (Except, of course, for all these guys).

“Rugg says that of all his projects, Afrodisiac is the most personal, or as personal as a comic about a super-pimp can be”: Zack Smith pens a great profile of Afrodisiac artist Jim Rugg for Indy Week.

Lame headline, great piece: Dave Howard has a wide-ranging Q and A with retailer, blogger and Toronto Comic Arts Festival director Chris Butcher for Torontoist.

Ch-ch-ch-changes: As you’re no doubt already aware, Heidi MacDonald has relocated her popular comics blog The Beat from its old Publisher’s Weekly locale in cyberspace to comicsbeat.com. Please update your bookmarks, and join me in wishing Heidi and everyone at The Beat the best of luck. Meanwhile, frequent Linkarama person-getting-linked-to Chris Sims has announced he’ll be quitting his day job at a comics shop to focus on his writing full-time, which is great news for fans of Sims’ writing. Perhaps that means he will be the person DC taps to write Watchmen 2 (He’s been tweeting some pretty great ideas on the subject), or maybe just more great pieces like his article on “The Racial Politics of Riverdale” over at Comics Alliance. Finally, retailer and blogger Mike Sterling is messing around with his site, which I remark upon because Sterling’s was one of the first and finest comics blogs I encountered, and because, as a comic book fan, I find even the slightest change in something I’ve become accustomed to worthy of comment. As long as his site remains the number one source for Sluggo-focused weekend content though, I’m sure everything will be okay.

Access Hollywood has revealed that Sony is in discussions with Percy Jackson and the Olympians star Logan Lerman for potentially helming another franchise — this one with the proportional strength of a spider.

“[Spider-Man is] of my favorite characters ever and I’m a huge fan of the series,” Lerman said during the interview. According to him, the interest between him and the studio was “vice versa.” “I’d love to have more conversations about it. I’m definitely very interested in it.”

And you know something? I’d actually be kind of cool with this — Lerman totally pulls off the look, and if he can get the humor down, this could be a slam-dunk. Lerman was quick to say that this is all a long process with the studio, but this is a Spidey I could certainly get behind. What say you, Rama readers?

If you like what you’ve read so far (c’mon, how can you not?) totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

“So this is the New Year, And I have no resolutions,” – Death Cab for Cutie

Well, that’s not quite true. I do have one resolution; it’s “do better.” Every year I take a look at how we did as a company and try to figure out ways we can improve. Improve the stories, the art, our timeliness, the value we bring our fans, really every aspect of our publishing business.

I try to avoid doing a ton of self-promotion with this blog for a number of reasons. And besides, I figure there are a number of places where you can find me hyping up our new projects and besides most Blog@Newsarama readers would tune me out if all I did was chat up Top Cow projects.

However, since it’s the beginning of 2010 I hope you’ll indulge me if share some of my excitement with you. Here’s what Top Cow has in store for you in 2010:

Angelus and Witchblade - Ron Marz and Stjepan Sejic continue their dynamic partnership monthly in Witchblade, and in the beginning of the year they’ll also give you a second dose of their awesomeness with Angelus, starring Dani Baptiste.

The Darkness – Phil Hester and artists like Michael Broussard, Whilce Portacio, and others will bring Jackie’s war with The Sovereign to a brutal and pulse-pounding conclusion in 2010. You won’t want to miss the twists and turns Hester has in store for you.

Broken Trinity: Pandora’s Box – Rob Levin, Bryan Edward Hill, and Alessandro Vitti are going to take you on a globe-trotting, high stakes action-adventure thrill ride with Finn and Glori, the stars of Broken Trinity. You say you miss Tomb Raider? Pick up this series and you will get your fix of that kind of story.

Magdalena – We finally give Ron Marz a chance to write the series he’s always wanted to write for the Cow – Magdalena! With artist Nelson Blake II and covers by Ryan Sook, this is going to be the definitive Magdalena series. We’re getting to the core of who Patience is and the Magdalena’s place in the Top Cow Universe.

Pilot Season – You say you want to see the winning titles from Pilot Season years past? Done. Look for announcements about Velocity, Twilight Guardian, and Genius series coming soon and those series to hit you hard in 2010.

Artifacts – This is the big daddy. If you only pick up one Top Cow series in 2010, it should be Artifacts. Thirteen issues, thirteen Artifacts that guide the fate of the Top Cow Universe, a horrifying crime, and the world will never be the same. No, really. Things kick off in July, but astute readers will see events building in Witchblade, The Darkness, Angelus, and Broken Trinity: Pandora’s Box.

It’s shaping to be our biggest, most ambitious year for the Top Cow Universe to date and you will not want to miss out. Questions will be answered; we’ll make you laugh, cry and everything in between. If nothing else I hope you take away how frickin’ passionate we are about the stories we are telling. And we still plan to “do better.” You can count on it.

Next time I promise to get back to more global comic talk and less shilling.

Take care,

Filip Sablik
Publisher Guy

Filip Sablik is the Publisher of Top Cow Productions, Inc. He’s been in the business for ten years and is in his thirties. Occasionally, he does a bit of writing and drawing. He loves comics. Top Cow Productions, Inc. was founded by Marc Silvestri, co-founder of Image Comics. Top Cow currently publishes its line of comic books in 21 languages in over 55 different countries. The company has launched 20 franchises (18 original and two licensed) in the industry’s Top 10, seven at #1, a feat accomplished by no other publisher in the last two decades.

Or cheerlead. The show is called Hellcats — not to be confused with the Thundercats — and it’s a “dramedy” based on competitive cheerleading.

Not that that show would remind you of a certain show about another snubbed extracurricular. A certain Glee-ful show. There’s no word as to whether or not this’ll impact Welling’s place on Smallville — but Ausiello speculates there may be some strings attached.

Writer Mark Waid was among those doing the latter:

—Wow, this seems like a bad day to announce that I’ve been tapped by DC to write DK3.

—Big news day for me and I’ve been cleared to announce it! Next summer, Paul Azaceta and I will be doing NEW FRONTIER 2: NEWER FRONTIER!

—I’m sorry. My bad. I meant to say NEW FRONTIER 2: FRONTIER HARDER.

Oh, that Mark Waid is a delight, and that’s before he even brings up Maus 2.

In all seriousness, if someone at DC is seriously considering moving forward with Watchmen projects, they sure picked a weird time to do so (Wouldn’t maybe sometime around the movie have been better? That whole “striking while the iron is hot” idea? Or maybe on an anniversary of the book’s publication?).

Remember, it’s still just rumors and chatter at this point, although a quote from Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes regarding “plans to mine more aggressively the deep catalogue of DC Comics characters” a quarterly earnings report sounds like possible support.

Personally, I sort of hope cool heads at DC and Warner listen to all the hand-wringing and joke-cracking like Waid’s and think better of Watchmen prequels, sequels, crossovers or stories from the squid’s point of view (Are there honestly any stories about those Charlton analogues that can’t be told using the actual Charlton characters DC also owns?). But, in all honesty, I am almost positive more Watchmen would make financial sense, and the publishing business is a business.

Even if they found creators who would take such a daunting challenge/rather tasteless assignment, even if it turned out terrible and every single person who read it hated it and/or only bought it to make fun of it on the Internet (like, say Ultimates 3 or Ultimatum, both of which sold gangbusters), it would certainly make a decent profit.

It shouldn’t be hard to crunch the numbers on Dark Knight Strikes Again, which most readers seemed to hate (I loved it, by the way) and see how much money that made, or to look at Blackest Night and see how much money the publisher can make by taking some old Alan Moore ideas and letting the right creator run wild with ‘em.

It might be better to wait until Alan Moore passes away to start aggressively exploiting his take on some DC-owned characters, but maybe the decision makers will feel better doing so while Moore’s still alive. After all, now all he’ll be able to do is make fun of them; once he’s dead, maybe he’ll be able to haunt them.

While I feel a bit skeptical, that’s the rumor making the rounds of the comicsphere today, courtesy of Bleeding Cool. Rich Johnston has stated that apparently DC SVP Dan DiDio is taking another look at the property, which former Publisher Paul Levitz had apparently put the kibosh on any sequels for, due to not wanting to tick off Alan Moore (or any creatives that sided with him on the Watchmen debate) even further.

Here’s a snippet from Rich on this:

I understand that both Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons have to be offered first refusal before any of these titles could be published. But if they don’t want to work on them themselves (and Alan Moore is never going to agree), DiDio has been sounding out people who might be willing to take on the task.

While some creators are reticent, the argument goes if there are a number of Watchmen spinoff projects, any blame or shame can be spread on many shoulders. The sales are expected to be massive, whatever the hardcore fanboy reaction and such expected sales benefits will be shared amongst the creative teams.

Part of me is taking this with a grain of salt — based on the sales figures and the behemoth ad campaign the Watchmen movie had, I wouldn’t exactly call the movie a box-office success. But that said, I’m sure a lot of people were saying this when they announced a sequel to the Dark Knight Returns — which was met with mixed reaction in 2001 and 2002. And as you’ll recall in the image above, Wizard had a particularly provocative promo image for Countdown: Arena, with a DKR Batman putting the slap-down on Rorschach. What say you, Rama readers? If such a sequel were to come to pass, what would you think about it?

(Click the image above for a larger version of the strip.)

WORLD OF HURT - The Thrill-Seekers - Episode 28: “An Abrupt Departure”

This episode was cathartic from a storytelling standpoint.  The upshot of the building with Duke represented as a tiny figure against the sky as he hurtled to his death was understated, yet powerful, and I am extremely proud of it.  Having Pastor standing there passively to survey his handiwork, instead of making some smart-ass quip, cemented the notion of him as a no-nonsense tough guy and underscored my desire to make WORLD OF HURT a serious, dramatic work exploration of Blaxploitation.

Yeah, I was pretty happy with this one.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT - The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

With the departure of David Tennant as the star of the BBC’s Doctor Who, BBC America and Warner Home Video have released Doctor Who: The Complete Specials. Featuring five specials (The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars and the first and second parts of The End of Time) over five DVDs, the box set features a wide array of features, commentary and documentaries and is available to own on DVD and Blu-Ray now after their February 2 release.

For hardcore fans of the series, this collection is a great sendoff to the current Doctor and showrunner Russell T. Davies, whose classic interpretation of the characters and the show have been well-received by fans and critics. The series, in addition to being a ratings success in the BBC and a staple of BBC America’s lineup, has inspired comic book spinoffs in the US and the UK and has led to interest in a US remake of the program. It’s a continuation of the BBC’s late ‘60s-late ‘80s run and has inspired a popular, Davies-helmed spinoff, Torchwood.

For more casual fans or those looking to acquaint themselves with the ideas of the show, this particular box set is a decent enough jumping-on point; Tennant has been widely praised as possibly the best Doctor ever to be featured on the show, and obviously the series finale (“The End of Time”) would be a decent enough lead-in to what’s currently a great jumping-on point for them, though: the introduction of a new Doctor (Matt Smith, introduced in part two of that story) with the new season. The show itself isn’t for everyone; the continuation of the old show is not only story-wise, but technically as well; it looks just like it did in the ‘60s, and has the very analog special effects and costuming of that era. Featuring a number of big-name guest-stars, the specials are an enjoyable, if campy, peek at the show.

30 years ago, Stan Lee and John Buscema teamed up for the first issue of SAVAGE SHE-HULK — and so Marvel has announced that this week will be She-Hulk Week! If you hit up their Digital Comics Unlimited site, you can check out Dan Slott and Juan Bobillo’s first issue of their She-Hulk run.

While that’s all cool and all, part of me feels that this birthday makes the timing of this page, from the recently-released Incredible Hulk #606, seem a little bit… ill-timed:

Getting your neck snapped by a steel cable seems like a present that probably isn’t returnable. I guess there’s always Girl Comics to look forward to?

Blog@Newsarama: So is Kurr going to carry the scars of his battle with Darkworld Dragon throughout the story, to help differentiate him from other Dragons?

Erik Larsen: No. There won’t be any other evil twins or lookalikes that dress in an identical manner. Dragon’s healing ability will take care of the wound in short order–in fact it has already. By the end Of #157 he was back to normal.

Blog@: I just wanted to see: Kurr’s eating the brain; do they need to be eaten or just completely destroyed?

EL: They need to be completely destroyed. If Dragon threw a guy into the sun it would be every bit as effective–but that’s not as easy as it sounds. Under the circumstances, eating his brains was the most effective way of taking care of the problem.

Blog@: So it’s pretty common knowledge around the house that Angel is hung up on Daredevil? I’m surprised Malcolm hasn’t been more actively opposed to it. Maybe just because he’s been distracted?

EL: He’s teased her about it in previous issues. There’s not a hell of a lot anybody can do about it, really. He’s her stepbrother, after all, not her parent. And even then–at a certain point a parent has only so much influence.

Blog@: So our newscaster, here—will this poor man’s brain melt if Stewart actually DOES start giving Overlord and the Circle some credibility?

EL: That’s R. Richard Richards–and we’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.

Blog@: Who’s the female dragon breaking out of Stronghold? I feel like having been out of circulation for a while, I missed or forgot something.

EL: She’s called Mutation. She appeared in #142-143 and briefly in #144. There’s some question as to what she really looks like and who she really is because she can transform.

Blog@: When was the last time we saw Flash Mercury?

EL: If you don’t count the one panel in issue #144 where he was seen in a crowded movie watching Speed Racer than it was in #126 after Mr. Glum had just used the God Gun to command everybody to do his bidding. In that issue Glum kicked him through the roof of the warehouse he was using as a hideout.

Blog@: What percentage of the Circle villains really believe what they’re saying in terms of how they never really wanted this life and felt driven to it?

EL: I can’t really give you a hard number there…

Blog@: I mean, it’s a pretty convenient “out” for the nastier bad guys to use, even if most of them are on the level. Think anyone’s hoping to use it as a reset button to get the eyes of the cops off them while they go back to their old ways?

EL: It’s the old “I blame society” dodge and while there is some truth to that–where poverty or other conditions have led people to do desperate things here in the real world–there are also people who are legitimately, unquestionably evil. Overlord would say that he’s trying to weed out those evil bastards, bring them to justice and then make things better for the rest but there’s some question about whether he’s being naïve or simply deceptive.

Blog@: I like the way that you handled the whole process of the Dragon-cloning thing. You gave us the first few awkward, horrible steps but then waited to have a big reveal this issue when the process had been a success. I feel like to have them hop right into a success would have been unbelievable, but having the “eureka!” moment happen on-panel might have killed some of the drama and left us wondering, “So when are the others going to show up?” Was that on purpose?

EL: Part of the nature of doing this book set in real time has been boiling things down to the essentials and letting the readers fill in some of the blanks. Answering every little question of how things happened can get both tedious and silly as pseudo-scientific jargon is tossed around. Sometimes less is more.

Newsarama’s very own Jenna Busch was one of the first two guest hosts on AOL’s new webshow “Instant Dharma“, where she talked LOST theories and possibilities after last night’s Twitter-frenzying premiere. Don’t want to get spoiled? Don’t worry, my lips are sealed — but if you want to see more, click the link above.

An Iron Man decal for your laptop. I don’t know about you, but I think this is clever as hell. Skintat also has others, such as a Snow White one.

[Hat tip to Andy Diggle]

Look familiar? It should. Here’s Jock’s cover to The Losers #12:

I prefer the crotch-in-your-face covers from #1 and #32, but that’s still pretty cool. The trailer looks awfully promising, too.

“In recent weeks, it seemed as though every other Marvel periodical I picked up featured an appearance by the original Captain America”: Don MacPherson managed to save up all his various Captain America comics set after the release of Captain America: Reborn #6, and thus was able to read and review ‘em all in order. Even in the proper order though, he was less than impressed.

Should Fergie play the lead in a Wonder Woman movie (if they ever get around to making one?): I don’t know, but USA Today was quite impressed with how Wonder Womanly she looked in her Grammys outfit with her hands on her hips. Meanwhile, Heidi “The Beat” MacDonald examined the evening’s fashion choices, and found a lot of parallels to superheroes and sci-fi. Is Black Lantern the new black?

The worst idea for a comic book movie I’ve heard in hours: The headline to this Hero Complex story says it all—”‘Sgt. Rock’ reloads as a movie project—but not as a WWII story.” Geoff Boucher interviews producer Joel Silver, who said the project is going to be set in the near future, as the idea was to be a war movie about where it’s going, rather than where it’s been. Well, I’m not a move producer, so I’ll just have to assume Silver knows what he’s talking about. A Rock movie set outside WWII sounds a little like a  an Enemy Ace movie about an American fighter pilot during the first Gulf War to me though.

Good luck with the cover credits this time!: “Second ‘Bat-Manga’ Volume In the Works”

I want to write an ongoing licensed 90210 comic book series, but that doesn’t mean I should: “Matthew Vaughn Wants To Make Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.”

Actually, the lamp that Radical Publishing’s Aladdin doesn’t have a singing, dancing, Robin Williams-sounding-like blue genie in it. Instead, it’s got a kinda scary-looking red djinn, which goes the entire first issue of Radical’s Aladdin: Legacy of the Lost without impersonating Ed Sullivan or Joan Rivers even once. The story is somewhat parallel to the more-familiar Disney version, given that they’re both built on the same skeleton of a story, but Radical’s is obviously a bit more serious and grim, replacing funny animals with cool-looking monsters.

Ian Edington writes, Patrick Reilly draws (with Stjepan Sejic joining him next issue), and it’s $5 for 64 musical number-free pages. What else is due out this week, and will any of those books have musical numbers in them? Join me after the jump for the answer to the first question…as to the second, I won’t know until I read the rest of ‘em, but I’m guessing none of ‘em do.

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3: It looks like Greg Rucka is in charge of all of this week’s Blackest Night tie-ins. The three-issue Wonder Woman miniseries with Nicola Scott will wrap-up, and Rucka is also co-writing the “resurrected” Question #37 with original Question writer Denny O’Neil (Not that dccomics.com reflects that creative team), and original Question artist Denys Cowan will be handling the pencil art.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #32: Controversial comics writer (and less-controversial prose writer) Brad Meltzer joins Joss Whedon and company for the next chapter of “Season Eight,” a five-part story arc entitled “Twilight.” I can’t decide if a Buffy the Vampire Slayer story calling itself “Twilight” is brilliant or sad, but I know it’s one. You can see a preview here.

Dominic Fortune: It Can Happen Here and Now: This is the 185-page, $20 trade paperback collection of Howard Chaykin’s recent Dominic Fortune miniseries for Marvel’s Max imprint. In addition to those four issues, you’ll also get Chaykin’s Dominic Fortune digital comics, plus the character’s earliest appearances in Marvel Premiere #56 and Marvel Preview #2.

Indomitable Iron Man Black and White #1: This is the latest of Marvel’s anthology one-shots in the format of their old school black and white magazines. The solicitation promises four stories, but only lists a couple of contributors (Paul Cornell and Howard Chaykin among them). If you’d like to read some comics about Iron Man this week, but the Black and White thing doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, chances are Marvel’s got something for you. There’s the latest issue of Invincible Iron Man by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca, there’s Iron Man & The Armor Wars, a 145-page, $15 trade collecting the miniseries of the same name by Joe Caramanga and Craig Rousseau and, finally, there’s Iron Man Magazine Special Edition, a $7, um, special edition magazine featuring Iron Man.

Marvel Heartbreakers: This 40-page, $4 romance-themed Valentine’s Day special features creators Kathryn Immonen, Rick Spears, Karl Bollers, Jim McCann, Lara West, James Callahan, Harvey Tolibao and David Lopez telling tales starring Mary Jane Watson, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker, Snowbird, Dazzler and “the girls of Nextwave.” That’s an odd assortment of characters, and an odd assortment of creators, so this may be worth a flip through. Preview here.

Milestone Forever #1: Dwayne McDuffie and many of his fellow Milestone veterans—John Paul Leon, MD Bright, Chris Cross, Denys Cowan—return to Icon, Static, Hardware and company in this 48-page, $6, prestige format special, the first part of a two-part series. The idea seems to be to put the Milestone Universe as it was to bed, while laying out the future of the characters, presumably as part of the DC Universe. Of course, given how chaotic and troubled McDuffie’s Justice League of America run—during which DC began folding the Milestone Universe into the DCU—turned out to be, I suppose this series could actually be about decoupling the universes. At any rate, it should be a fun nostalgia project for fans of the (too) short-lived Milestone line.

Showcase Presents: Secrets of Sinister House: As DC houses go, Sinister House isn’t as well known as The House of Secrets or The House of Mystery, but this $18, 500-page trade paperback collects the short-lived early seventies gothic horror/romance series. Mike Sekowsky, Sheldon Mayer, Alfred Alcala, Gil Kane, Murphy Anderson, Alex Toth, Frank Giacoia are among the who’s who list of contributors.

Siege #2: Brian Michael Bendis and Oliver Coipel will reach the halfway point of their four-issue Marvel Universe crossover by the time this $4 issue is over. The solicitation promises “the biggest and most brutal battle in Marvel’s history,” which is a pretty bold statement, considering so much of Marvel’s history was drawn by Jack Kirby, and also that “AN AVENGER WILL DIE!!” Like Hawkeye in “Avengers: Disassembled”? Or like The Wasp in Secret Invasion? Or maybe a death that actually sticks and makes some sort of dramatic sense? (I still don’t understand what happened to The Wasp…I think involved Kirby dots? And teleporting?) Anyway, Death! So exciting…! For a “street level” look at the conflict (i.e. Ben Urich kvetching about Glenn Beck), this week also sees the release of Siege: Embedded #2, by Brian Reed and Chris Samnee. You can check out a preview of Embedded here; looks Volstaggariffic.

Ultimate Comics X #1: Here’s everything I know about this title—

—It’s written by Jeph Loeb.

—It’s drawn by Arthur Adams

—It costs $4.

—The first issue is shipping with four different covers, one of which is a “Foilogram variant.”

—The first house ad featured a sullen teenager in a hoodie with Wolverine claws getting on the bus after school.

—The second house ad looks like this:

If you haven’t already made up your mind about the title based on that information, you can check out a preview here.

Walt Disney’s Valentine’s Classics: Boom has assembled an extremely promising looking collection of classic Disney comics, including romance-themed stories featuring the funny animal characters like Mickey, Donald and the gang, from the likes of Carl Barks, Izomar C. Guilherme, Daan Jippes, Floyd Gottredson, Euclides K. Miyayra and others. It’s a $25, 110-page hardcover. Boom’s got a bunch of other Disney-related titles due out this week, including Wizards of Mickey #1, Disney’s Hero Squad: Ultraheroes #1 and Toy Story #1.

DC fans who have wondered for years if we’d ever see Young Justice again can take a little solace from this report on Rich Johnston’s Bleeding Cool site.

In a nutshell, actress Stephanie Lemelin blogged that she’s voicing Arrowette in an upcoming “Saturday morning cartoon” called Young Justice League. Along with an image of the character (seen here) that she claimed was concept art for the series, Lemelin said that “Due to the extreme popularity of this series, however, that’s about all I can say,” which apparently was more than she should have because the link provided in Johnston’s story leads nowhere, and there’s no mention of the entry or the series anywhere else on Lemelin’s blog. Bleeding Cool, of course, deals pretty regularly in gossip and off-the-record stuff, so they had the foresight to archive the material, probably knowing full well that it wouldn’t be allowed to stay online very long. A second, unattributed source told Johnston that the team will be made up of Arrowette, Martian Girl, Aqualad, Nightwing, Impulse, and Superboy/Kon-El.

Lemelin has some interesting projects coming up, according to IMDB, but what we’ve seen so far makes her a perfectly reasonable choice for an animated spin-off of a comic; she has experience in the direct-to-video Kung-Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five, based on the feature film starring Jack Black, and starred in several episodes of the Cavemen TV series based on the series of popular Geico commercials.