Green Arrow: Year One

Internet | A website called the Home of the Green Arrow, which supports the far-right British National Party in its "fight to secure a future for the indigenous peoples of these islands in the North Atlantic which have been our homeland for millennia," has co-opted Jock's art from the DC Comics miniseries Green Arrow: Year One for its banner. "This is leaving a horrible taste in my mouth," the artist wrote this morning on Twitter. He has contacted DC's legal department. [Jock's Twitter feed]

Art | Frank Frazetta's original cover painting for the 1967 Lancer paperback edition of Conan the Conqueror sold at auction last week for a reported $1 million. That's nearly four times the previous record price for the artist's work -- $251,000 -- paid in 2008 for the cover to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Escape on Venus. [Spectrum Fantastic Art, via Sci Fi Wire]

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told

Art | As of Thursday morning, bids on the 18 pieces of original art by Joe Kubert had reached $30,000. The auction, held by Heritage Auction Galleries, opens to the public today. [Daily Record]

Awards | Mike Keefe, editorial cartoonist for the Denver Post, has won the 2009 Berryman Award for Editorial Cartooning. [The Daily Cartoonist]

Publishing | Dark Horse Assistant Editor Brendan Wright discusses one of the perks of his job: seeing the doodles and character designs that Stan Sakai occasionally leaves on the back of his Usagi Yojimbo art boards. [The Wright Opinion]

Publishing | Lauren Davis takes a look at celebrities who dip their toes into the comic-book pool. [io9.com]

Retailing | "Superheroes saving comic book stores from recession." Yeah. [Daily Camera]

Creators | Phil Hester talks about his career and his new BOOM! Studios series The Anchor, and offers some advice to young writers and artists. [Surfing the Bleed]

From "Spandex" #1

Creators | Scott Thill interviews Martin Eden, creator of the gay-superteam comic Spandex, which earlier this week had been heralded as presenting "the first gay superheroes." “Let’s not kid ourselves,” Eden said. “Spandex aren’t the first-ever gay superheroes. At the moment, for instance, you’ve got a lesbian Batwoman, a lesbian Question, Rictor and Shatterstar in X-Factor, and there’s been Apollo and Midnighter in the Authority, who were gay versions of Superman and Batman. There are probably a few more, but not many. I mean, I was thinking of pitching a gay series to Marvel a while ago, but could barely think of any gay characters they had, which surprised me.”

Blogosphere | Tucker Stone delivers a special, positive edition of "Advanced Common Sense": "That's what being a hero is all about -- is that sometimes you have to take out a baby." [The Factual Opinion]

Hunter's Fortune #1

Hunter's Fortune #1
Written by Andrew Cosby and Caleb Monroe; Illustrated by Matt Cossin
Boom!; $3.99

It's comics like that this that are the exact reason I started this column.

I love treasure hunter stories. That probably started with Raiders of the Lost Ark, or maybe Treasure Island long before that, but ever since I was a kid I've loved stories about people trying to find hidden treasure. Whether it's a chest of gold, a lost artifact, or a hidden city doesn't really matter. It's just the whole spirit of adventure; striking out on little information to try and discover something that may or may not exist.

My biggest fear when starting a new treasure hunter story is that it's not going to live up to its concept. Maybe I won't like the main character. Maybe the clues will be too easy to figure out. Maybe the villains will be unoriginal. Maybe the banter will be more annoying than witty. Maybe it just won't have the sense of wonder that it should. There are dozens of things that can go wrong and often do. I'm so happy that none of that's the case with the first issue Hunter's Fortune.

The story opens with Hunter Prescott being kicked out of his apartment on the same day that his car's repossessed. Hunter's a young kid - early 20s - and his only support is his best friend Trip, who's only slightly less worse off than Hunter. "You can totally crash at my place," he tells Hunter. "With both of us, I bet we can even afford to turn my power back on." Thanks to Matt Cossin's art, Hunter is a good-looking, likable kid and Trip is all starry-eyed and optimistic. Caleb Monroe's dialogue also helps enormously to make these guys real people and not annoying clichés. Hunter's down on his luck, but he's got Trip, whose cheerfulness in the face of adversity makes him a huge asset. Even if Hunter doesn't always totally appreciate it.

Secret keys, beautiful villains, a legendary artifact, and a bear-fighting Russian after the jump.

Trip

By page three, the boys have met a woman named Jessica Lockhart who shows up outside Hunter's former apartment with a limo and a suit. Hunter's been invited to attend a funeral for a man he doesn't know, a multi-millionaire named Max Prescott. He's even more surprised afterward to learn that Prescott has left him sole heir of assets worth over half a billion dollars. Providing, of course, that Hunter completes the one task that Prescott wasn't able to finish in his long life as a treasure hunter: finding Excalibur. Jessica will more or less execute the will as well as help Hunter in his quest.

There's not a ton of action in the first issue, but I didn't miss it. The characters - starting with the boys and including Jessica, Prescott's creepy lawyer who looks just like the Ventriloquist from Batman, and Prescott's ex-wife and her daughter from a previous relationship - are all fantastic. The wife and daughter are the villains of the story. They've been cut out of Prescott's will and aren't happy about it. All they've got to do to claim the estate is prevent Hunter from fulling the conditions of the will. That is, keep him from finding Excalibur.

And they've got the resources to do it too. We don't know how wealthy they are, but the daughter Miranda is completely hot and Trip has a huge crush on her. He's the weak point in Hunter's defenses. And the mom? Sibyl? Her boyfriend fights bears for a living. So, yeah. Regardless of how much money they've got, they're well prepared to take on Hunter and Trip.

Ivan

Not that Hunter's without resources of his own. The only clues he's got to Excalibur's location are an old-fashioned key and a coded journal. There's some speculation about why Prescott would encrypt the journal if he really wanted Hunter to succeed, but Hunter's apparently up to the challenge. He may not know how to read the diary yet, but he doesn't take long to figure out the secret of the key. Which, by the way, is pretty damn cool.

Last week I complained about a sequence in Bizenghast where a hidden lock was too easily found. Cosby and Monroe do it right in Hunter's Fortune. Hunter doesn't figure it out right away, so there's some suspense, but we learn that - though he's an underachiever - he's a smart kid and he's paying attention. He's going to be a good match for Sibyl and Miranda who are no dummies themselves.

What I like most about the issue though is that sense of wonder I mentioned earlier. Hunter is so likable and grounded that it's easy to put yourself in his place. So when he gets out of Jessica's limo to a double-page spread of Prescott's enormous, lavishly illustrated mansion, you can't help but feel giddy knowing that he's just stepped into a new life and a very cool world. The rest of it - the creepy lawyer, the beautiful villains, Jessica (who has doubts of her own about Prescott's instructions, but is cautiously hopeful that Hunter's the right choice for the task); the secret journal and mysterious key - all gets Hunter's Fortune off to a magical start that feels real enough to suck you in and promises much more awesomeness to come. As Jessica tells Hunter at one point with a mischievous smile, "Anything can happen."

And I believe it.

Five out of five mysterious keys.

Hunter

Shel Dorf with Warren Beatty in 1990

Passings | Sheldon "Shel" Dorf, who in 1970 co-founded the event that grew into Comic-Con International, passed away Nov. 3 in San Diego's Sharp Memorial Hospital from diabetes-related complications. He was 76.

A collector of comics and Dick Tracy memorabilia, Dorf had run Triple Fan Fest in his native Detroit. After he moved to San Diego in early 1970, he met Ken Krueger of Alert Books in Ocean Beach and the two, together with a group of teen-aged fans, organized first Golden State Comic Con, held Aug. 1-3, 1970, at the U.S. Grant Hotel. Dorf served as president, or chairman, of the convention until the mid-1980s, stepping away just as the annual event was becoming a national stage for pop culture.

Dorf reportedly struggled with diabetes for years, gradually losing mobility and vision. He entered Sharp Memorial Hospital in 2008 and never left. His brother Michael was with him when he died.

Mark Evanier, of course, has a nice tribute to Dorf peppered with memories dating back to before that first convention. There's also an extensive Shel Dorf Tribute website, and a memorial banner topping the Comic-Con International homepage. The photo above, of Dorf with Warren Beatty on the set of the 1990 Dick Tracy movie, is borrowed from Alan Light's Flickr stream. [The San Diego Union-Tribune]

Red Light Properties

Publishing | Tor.com, Macmillan's science fiction and fantasy online initiative, has acquired the web-only publishing rights to two full-length graphic novels: The Imitation Game, a biography of mathematician Alan Turing, by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Purvis; and Red Light Properties, a real-estate horror story by Dan Goldman. The two books will be serialized on Tor.com beginning in January. [PW Comics Week]

Publishing | Bestselling novelist S.E. Hinton, author of The Outsiders, has partnered with Bluewater Productions to publish comic-book adaptations of some of her books, beginning in spring 2010 with her young-adult novel Taming of the the Star Runner. [Bluewater Productions]

Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson talks with BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid about the company's philosophy, its position in the marketplace, the BOOM! Kids line and newsstand distribution. [PW Comics Week]

Creators | Writer, and Image Comics partner, Robert Kirkman talks up Image United, the six-issue miniseries that brings together six of the company's seven founders. [USA Today]

Creators | Brian Heater wraps up his four-part interview with Guy Delisle. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Hatter M

Creators | Author Frank Beddor discusses his Looking Glass Wars novels, which have spawned the Hatter M comic book tie-ins. [Hero Complex]

Conventions | The Des Moines Register previews Saturday's I-CON convention in Altoona, Iowa, with a series of articles profiling a local artist, a local writer, a cosplayer, a collector, etc. (You can find an index here under "Related Stories.") Guests include Phil Hester, Sean Galloway, Kevin Cannon, Bob Hall and Ryan Benjamin. [I-CON]

Conventions | Saturday also will see the return of Tucson Comic Con in Arizona, which will feature appearances by Max Cannon, Ryan Cody, Brian Pulido, and others.  [Daily Wildcat]

Blood's A Rover

Welcome to What Are You Reading. I hope everyone had a nice Halloween and spent at least part of it reading comics.

Our guest this week is Chip Mosher, Marketing Director at Boom! Studios, publisher of such fine books as Irredeemable and The Muppet Show. As the image above hints, Chip's been reading some rather interesting (and gritty) material, so click on the link below to discover what he and the rest of Robot 6 have been reading recently. Oh, and don't forget to let us know what you have been reading in the comments section.

Brave and the Bold #10

Tim O'Shea: My son really enjoyed the reversal of Atom's usual power in Batman: The Brave and the Bold 10. Meanwhile, I just loved the sheer infectious nature of the story. Landry Walker makes me yearn for more Johnny DC titles written by him. And Eric Jones' two-page spread (as Atom and a Mutant Giant Batman fight) is a sweet tribute to the old Godzilla films (nicely timed for Halloween).

Astra #2 (of the issue Astro City two-part special event) was more entertaining than the cumulative dragging sensation of Busiek's Astro City/The Dark Age work. Let me clarify, while reading certain issues of The Dark Age, I've been engaged and entertained--but seeing how much more ground that Busiek's been able to cover in two issues makes me partial to this quicker pacing. In terms of scope, I agree it's an apples and oranges comparison, but I still find myself craving more Astra-scale tales.

As Greg Rucka's Batwoman origin starts to play out in Detective Comics I'm slowly starting to appreciate why Rucka was so interested in developing Kate Kane. The final pages of this issue are some of the strongest I've seen from J.H. Williams III's already impressive run. Rucka's dialogue, mixed with Willams' use of darkness and panel layout, is elevated by Todd Klein's lettering particularly on the third to last page of the story. Did I mention Dave Stewart's colors? Because I really should. I'll be curious to see if and how DC collects Rucka and Cully Hamner's Question back-up feature down the road. As this particular arc wraps, I'm left wishing the Question pacing was different. The final installment opens with a great foot chase scene that I wished had more space to play out. And the story's conclusion carries an emotional closure that connects to the opening installment four issues ago. I think it would pack more emotional punch if I could read it in one sitting -- a situation that admittedly would still occur even if the story had the lead position and page number volume of the main Detetctive story.

Speaking of Hamner, I just reread Warren Ellis/Hamner's 2003 three-issue miniseries RED -- in preparation for an interview with Hamner. This is likely my favorite Ellis-written tale, mainly because of Hamner's exquisite work.

Finally, previous WAYR installments have sported me struggling with Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four. I struggle no more. Hickman's conclusion, while a smidge rushed, strikes a convincing and winning tone with me. (Though I must admit, it cracked me up in the heat of battle on the world of Reeds, when one Reed would say address one of them as "Reed" and the others failed to all turn around in unison, and ask "which one?"...). I could have done without the Val and Franklin subplot, but you have to give readers something to come back for next issue I guess.

Cat Paradise

Brigid Alverson: It’s Halloween as I’m writing this, so it’s appropriate that I’m reading Beyond Temptation, a horror story told from a teen point of view. It’s horror lite—there’s a hawt demon and some vaguely drawn histrionics, but mostly it’s that more surreal kind of horror — a girl saves a demon’s life, and he must repay her somehow. When he hears she needs money, he makes money magically appear in her pockets. It’s sort of a modern version of the magic porridge-pot, with a bit of Twilight-esque forbidden romance. The drawing is rather rudimentary, and the script has some spelling errors and odd usage—the story is set in Europe and I think this is translated from another language. Usually these two things send me running from a webcomic, but this has an unusually good story, so I’ sticking with it.

Back on the printed page, I’m enjoying the first volume of Yuji Iwahara’s Cat Paradise. I absolutely adored Iwahara’s three-volume Chikyu Misaki, a gorgeously drawn manga that has a lot in common with classic kids’ films. Cat Paradise is more straightforward — you don’t stop to admire the art as much—but it’s still mighty pretty. The story is a schoolgirl’s delight—our heroine goes to a school where students are allowed to keep a pet cat, and it turns out that the students and the cats must unite to battle monsters that are attacking the school. Everything is imaginatively drawn, and all the cats have distinct personalities of their own—in fact, they are more interesting than the students. This is more than a cat manga, though. I am not particularly fond of cats, but I like a good story, and this one delivers.

Detective Comics #858

Tom Bondurant: The LCS had a sale today -- 20% off without costumes, 25% off with -- so most of us donned our costumes for a family outing. The "Let's Be Friends Again" guys were signing copies of their new collection, but the line was a little long and we still had to buy Halloween candy.

As for what I've been reading, I think I'll just stop counting the number of styles JH Williams III uses in Detective Comics. What a great series that is.

Amy Reeder Hadley returned to Madame Xanadu for this week's issue #16, in which Betty Draper is the victim of some very disturbing magical pranks. I really liked her work this issue, because I think it is an excellent fit for the clean lines of the late-1950s setting. Matt Wagner's script was tight and suspenseful too, in part because I wasn't sure exactly who was working behind the scenes.

This week also saw the American-comics debut of Congolese artist Pat Masioni, drawing the first of a two-part Unknown Soldier story (in issue #13). I found his work very similar to regular series artist Alberto Ponticelli, but that's hardly a criticism: it's expressive and efficient, and it kept writer Joshua Dysart's script moving. LIke Madame Xanadu #16, the story begins with a
peripheral character and takes its time to get to Moses. That helped draw me into the story, and I'm looking forward to the next issue.

Finally, appropriately enough, I worked my way through Showcase Presents Ambush Bug. I hadn't read his early appearances in the Superman books, and as it turns out I hadn't read the Nothing Special, so some of it was actually new to me, but all of it was entertaining. I think I appreciate Keith Giffen's sense of humor better today than I did when these books first appeared. Back then I was probably looking for the kind of gags which are many bloggers' bread and butter -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- so it was good to realize Giffen (and scripter Robert Loren Fleming) were in fact going for something a little deeper. Now, thanks to my LCS trip, I can read the final issue of Year None with an informed eye.

JK Parkin: The third edition of Matthew Loux's Salt Water Taffy series is, like the others, a lot of fun. In this one, Jack and Benny solve a century's old mystery and help out an old ghost tied to the town's history.

And since I've been loving Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four, I picked up the Dark Reign: Fantastic Four trade. It's a good intro to his work on the regular title, esp. the way he characterizes Reed. And the bits with Franklin and Valerie were worth the price of admission alone. Actually, there are lots of cool little touches in this, as Ben, Sue and Johnny are jumping through alternate universes where the FF are pirates, or cowboys or space rangers. Fun stuff.

Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows

Chris Mautner: Halloween seems like the perfect time to be reading Bernie Wrightson comics, so I'm glad IDW sent me an advance copy of the first issue of The Ghoul, his latest work with writer Steve Niles that I believe comes out in stores this week. Sadly, this issue feels a bit overly familiar. It's basically Hellboy with a little bit of Goon mixed in -- a trenchcoated police detective needs help solving a mysterious kidnapping, so he enlists the aid of The Ghoul, who works for a special supernatural, federal police force. Of course, it turns out the Ghoul is an actual monster, though quite the sardonic, kick ass tough guy as well.

It all has the feeling of walking down a well-traveled road. Certainly it's nice to see Wrightson doing comics again, and Niles' script is certainly breezy and competent enough. But unless there's some major plot twists or change in tone in the next issue, there's nothing here that isn't in a hundred other supernatural detective stories that seem to be flooding the market these days.

IDW also sent me the first issue of the new Locke and Key series, written by Stephen King's son, Joe Hill, and drawn by Gabriel Rodriguez. I'm not terribly familiar with the series, but if I'm reading it right, it's basically a haunted house story with some fantasy elements thrown in. The first issue is basically a fight between the ghost of a dead killer and the astral projection of an apparently even worse bad guy. Rodriguez frames the sequence rather well. I like his characters' burly, expressive faces. He throws in a lot of detail during the fight, but I never had a problem figuring out what was going on. The comic is a little too plot-heavy for me to start reading here, but I might go back and look at some of the previous trade collections.

American Tabloid

Chip Mosher: When I am not completely immersed in comics, I like to read crime and hard boiled mystery novels. Ross MacDonald, Jim Thompson, Carter Brown, Charles Willeford, Donald Goines just to name a few. And if you are familiar with those guys, well you know that all those authors have passed away. So... I like to read stuff by a bunch of dead guys about people getting dead, but, hey, when I want a change of pace and read books by someone who is living, I turn to James Ellroy. Ellroy is called the "Demon Dog" of crime fiction and he's damn good. Right now I am making my way through his latest "BLOOD'S A ROVER." I love Ellroy's muscular, clipped, staccato prose style and his labyrinthine plots. Reading his later work is like reading Kerouac poems, but about crime instead "the road", and cool instead of pretentious! Speaking, Ellroy's latest book's title is taken from a poem titled "Reveille" by A.E. Housman:

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad; when the journey's over
There'll be time enough for sleep.

Which I thought was cool. (And, hey, might also be pretentious! Oh, well.) In any case, before I moved out to Los Angeles, Ellroy was fast becoming one of my favorite living writers, and since I have lived here I have had the opportunity to meet him several times; once doing a bus tour given by Ellroy himself! On that tour, we went around to the neighborhoods where he used to be do B&Es (that's breaking and entering to the uninitiated), scenes of infamous murders that he works into his novels, and ending right at the spot where fifty year previous his mother's body was dumped after she was brutally murdered (See Ellroy's memoir MY DARK PLACES). The Ellroy bus tour was probably the best Christmas present my wife has ever given me. But I am weird that way. In any case, I am crime freak, a book freak, a conspiracy freak, and a history freak. If you're freaky in the same way, I would highly recommend BLOOD'S A ROVER and the whole Underworld USA Trilogy, which includes AMERICAN TABLOID and THE COLD SIX-THOUSAND. It tracks the years from 1960-1972 and takes all the craziness of who killed JFK, RFK, MLK (but, hey, not MJK) and mixes it up in one blender of a bitchin' series. And if you get the hardcover you can dig on those deckle edges. I love me some deckle edges. Did I mention I was a book freak? I think I did!

The Original Johnson

• IDW has announced the street dates for a couple of publishing ventures recently, including the their two Archie collections. The Best of Dan DeCarlo Vol. 1 will hit stores in May, while The Classic Newspaper Comics Vol. 1 will arrive in June.

More notably, the company also announced they would be collecting and releasing Trevor Von Eeden's The Original Johnson, about the life of boxer Jack Johnson, in December. In his recent interview with The Comics Journal, Von Eeden had discussed contract disputes he had been having with co-publisher ComicMix about the work so it's nice to book being completed and in print form.

• According to a press release that seems to be going around town, Fantagraphics and Supermen! editor (and former Fanta employee) Greg Sadowski will be working together on a series of seven collections of Golden Age comics. They are: Setting The Standard: Alex Toth at Standard Comics 1952-54, The Road To Plastic Man: The Golden Age Comics of Jack Cole 1937-41, Away From Home: EC Artists at Other Companies, Creeping Death From Neptune: Basil Wolverton’s Sci-Fi and Horror Comics 1938-55 and The Comic Book Frankenstein: The Monster According to Dick Briefer. That's a pretty amazing line-up. I'm especially excited for that Briefer book.

• Rex Libris author James Turner has let it be known that the third issue of his Warlord of Io series is now available for download from SLG.

• I think I mentioned this before, but just in case I haven't: McSweeney's is releasing a fancy hardcover reprint of the Justin Green classic Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. You'll probably want to get this.

• Things I wasn't aware of department: BOOM! Studios has entered into an agreement with Italycomics to publish a monthly anthology of the former's books in Italy. The "Boom Magazine Annual #!" will debut this weekend at the Lucca Comics festival.

• PictureBox is plugging a whole slew of new books, comics, zines and prints for those who are interested.

• Radical Publishing has unveiled their solicitations for January of next year. They include: the first issue of Aladdin: Legacy of the Lost, a three-issue mini-series written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by Patrick Reilly and Stjepan Sejic; Legends: The Enchanted #0, written and illustrated by Nick Percival. The Aladdin series will retail for $4.99 an issue. The complete Legends story will be released in April as a stand-alone graphic novel.

• You might be wanting to keep an eye out for this Dark Horse book soon I reckon.

Dragon Ball

Manga | Wicomico County schools in Maryland removed all copies of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball from library shelves Wednesday after the mother of a fourth-grader complained about the nudity and sexual situations depicted in the first volume of the hit series. The manga, which sports an "All Ages" a T+ rating, is published in North America by Viz Media.

A committee of administrators and "people from outside the school system" will review books, but the schools superintendent will make the final decision on the fate of the series. At a Tuesday meeting of the County Council, one councilman distributed photocopies of scenes from Dragon Ball, describing some of the illustrations as "disgusting." [The Daily Times, The Daily Times]

Legal | An amended agreement between Google and the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers is expected to be filed by Friday to address concerns raised by the Google Book Search settlement. DC Comics is among the parties that object to the terms of the original deal, designed to resolve a 2005 lawsuit accusing the Internet giant of infringing on copyrights by digitizing out-of-print books without permission. [Publishers Weekly]

The 3 Geeks, by Rich Koslowski

Legal | Cartoonist Rich Koslowski has won a copyright-infringement lawsuit against an Ontario computer-consultation company that used one of his 3 Geeks images without permission. [Eye on Comics]

Publishing | Sales of adult graphic novels in the book market fell 15 percent in the third quarter versus the same period in 2008, largely because Watchmen was such a hot item last year. Kids' and young-adult graphic novels "appear to be an area that's doing well this year," but we're left to wonder what that means. [ICv2.com]

Publishing | Japanese publishers Kodansha and Akita Shoten have announced a partnership involving their domestic and international copyright business. The deal reportedly would allow Akita Shoten to take advantage of Kodansha's market position and knowledge to expand in adaptations and licensing. [Anime News Network]

Kodansha Comics

Publishing | Calvin Reid gets more details from Kodansha's Yoshio Irie about the Japanese publisher's new U.S. division. [PW Comics Week]

Publishing | Heidi MacDonald talks with BOOM! Studios Publisher Ross Richie about the recently announced deal for Haven Distributors to distribute second printings of his company's titles: "What’s really great here especially, is that for retailers who want to go with Haven we can offer a better discount on our 2nd prints. We have asked Diamond twice to put us in a better discount category and they have decided it is not something they want to do. Diamond’s in business to make money and needs to make decisions that make sense for what their best interests are. We’re in business to make money and need to make decisions on our end that make sense for our own interests. Sometimes those things line up, sometimes they don’t." [The Beat]

Viz Media

Publishing | Viz Media is accepting submissions for original comics. [Viz Media]

Conventions | The 10th annual Baltimore Comic-Con will be held Saturday at the Baltimore Convention Center. George Perez is the guest of honor. The 2009 Harvey Awards will be presented on Saturday. [The Baltimore Sun]

Conventions | IDW Publishing Editor Andy Schmidt and Akiko creator Mark Crilley will appear this weekend at the West Virginia Book Festival in Charleston. [Charleston Gazette, Charleston Daily Mail]

Sales charts | Here's a bit of a surprise: Robert Crumb's The Book of Genesis Illustrated debuts at No. 9 on Nielsen BookScan's Top 20 list of adult graphic novels sold in bookstores in September. [ICv2.com]

Creators | The Berkeley Breathed/Bloom County promotional tour marches on. [Mercury News]

Angel #28

Creators | Bill Willingham chats about Fables and tackling Angel for IDW Publishing. [TFAW.com]

Creators | Peter Bagge talks briefly about a course he'll teach at Seattle University and a series of biographies he plans to write about influential women from the early 20th century. [Seattle University Spectator]

Creators | Amelia Rules! creator Jimmy Gownley appeared this week on KCRW's "Guest DJ Project." [KCRW]

Comics | David Uzumeri annotates the fifth issue of Batman and Robin. [Funnybook Babylon]

Art and design | Todd Klein continues his study of Legion of Super-Heroes logos through the decades. [Todd's Blog, Todd's Blog]

Akira, Vol. 1

Publishing | Kodansha confirms what virtually everyone has known for quite a while now: that the publisher -- Japan's largest -- is setting up shop in the United States, establishing an office in New York City. Kodansha USA Publishing will launch Kodansha Comics with Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira and Shirow Masamune's Ghost in the Shell, two titles that had been licensed in North America by Dark Horse. The company will focus on translating its sizable backlist, but views original publishing as one of its "eventual ambitions." David Welsh provides a little commentary. [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | BOOM! Studios has signed a deal with Haven Distributors to distribute second printings of all of the publisher's monthly titles to direct-market retailers. [BOOM! Studios]

Peepo Choo, Vol. 1

Publishing | David Welsh talks with Ed Chavez, marketing manager of Vertical, Inc., about the publisher's latest license acquisitions. [The Comics Reporter]

Conventions | Four-day memberships are available for the 2010 Comic-Con International, but it looks like the Preview Night option already has sold out. With more than nine months to go. [Comic-Con]

Conventions | Richard Bruton files a report from last weekend's British International Comics Show in Birmingham. [Forbidden Planet International]

Conventions | A bit of a dust-up has developed after organizers of Octocon, the Irish science-fiction convention, banned fan and comics journalist Pádraig Ó Méalóid from this weekend's event. They cite his "behaviour at the convention some time ago" and his "online behaviour earlier this year," but refuse to discuss their reasons further. [Forbidden Planet International]

Conventions | Martha Donato, director of Long Beach Comic Con, talks about what went into organizing the event. [Long Beach Post]

Events | The Indiana University student newspaper covers a lecture given on Monday by Scott McCloud. [Indiana Daily Student]

Creators | The Berkeley Breathed/Bloom County Library promotional tour continues. [San Antonio Express-News]

Creators | Cartoonist Jim Davis discusses more than three decades of Garfield, which now appears in 2,500 newspapers. [Telegraph]

The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks

Creators | World War Z author Max Brooks chats about his graphic novel The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, which hits stores this week. [Fangoria]

Creators | Artist Tony Harris looks back at his 20 years in comics as chronicled in the upcoming collection Tony Harris: Art & Skulduggery: "It took years, but I think I found my voice as an illustrator. I truly think that when you see my work, it is singular. And I have tried very hard to be original. Of course I had my missteps early on like all young artists. But I am fairly comfortable as an illustrator now. I am nowhere near where I want to be, but I keep working at it. And I have never worked in one style. I try and let the job dictate to me what it needs to look like." [PopCultureShock]

Creators | Brian Heater wraps up his three-part interview with Jason Lutes. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Archie #603

Comics | The New York Times finally catches on that Archie is marrying Veronica and Betty in a pair of What If? stories. [The New York Times]

Blogosphere | The gang at The Cool Kids Table continues its anniversary celebration by looking at some of the comic-book characters we've lost in the past year. Sniff. [The Cool Kids Table]

Legal | Let's say you're a hip-hop artist-turned-actor being arraigned on tax-evasion charges. What would you bring with you to court? Well, if you're Method Man (aka Clifford Smith) you take ... an Ultimate X-Men trade paperback. And then you make sure don't lose your place while you're actually being arraigned. [Staten Island Advance]

Lady Gaga comic

No, you haven't accidentally stumbled onto MTV or Rolling Stone's website; the worlds of music and comics collided a few times over the last few days in some fun and even odd ways ....

First up, the odd ... designer clothing retailer Marc Jacobs is selling a $2 comic starring musician Lady Gaga. The comic was created by artist Brian Einersen and "name-drops St. John, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent so we know it’s worth the read," Fashionista reports. (Via Splash Page).

Second, Marvel.com chats with Nick Harmer, bass player for Death Cab for Cutie, about music, touring and, of course, comics. Harmer reveals that he opens his toys and is a big Wolverine fan.

"I will follow Wolverine anywhere," he says. "Though, I have to admit, I am still a little upset about the whole 'bone claws' addition to his story. When I discovered Wolverine and the X-Men, he was just a mutant who could heal fast and that's how he was able to survive having his skeleton coated with adamantium and claws put IN. He wasn't born with bone claws. That's ridiculous. I know I should just accept this as part of his story now, but I was just such an expert on him when I was a kid it's hard to give that up."

And finally, Claudio Sanchez from Coheed and Cambria will appear on G4's Attack of the Show later today to talk about his BOOM! series Kill Audio. The first issue comes out this week.

Long Beach Comic Con

Conventions | The local newspapers were all over the inaugural Long Beach Comic Con, held over the weekend in Long Beach, California. The Long Beach Post reported on the ribbon-cutting by Stan Lee -- "Some Stan Lee Day," he joked. "They're still delivering mail, and the banks are still open." -- and some of the other convention highlights. The Contra Costa Times also has a wrap-up.

Gelatometti, the Wildstorm Studios blog, has a nice photo set from the convention, including a great shot of Jim Lee and Stan Lee having a laugh. [Long Beach Comic Con]

Conventions | The fourth annual British International Comics Show, held Saturday and Sunday in Birmingham, reportedly drew more than 3,000 creators, publishers, dealers and fans. [Birmingham Mail]

Events | A handful of news outlets have coverage of local 24-Hour Comics Day events: Columbia Missourian, KTUU (Alaska), Minneapolis Comic Books Examiner and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. [24-Hour Comics Day]

Publishing | BOOM! Studios CEO Ross Richie discusses the format and distribution for the publisher's Disney Standards comics. [ICv2.com]

Opus, from "Bloom County"

Creators | Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed receives a pair of spotlights focusing on the release of Bloom County: The Complete Library from IDW Publishing, and the 30th anniversary of the influential comic. Does Breathed embrace the impact of his strip? "An understandable but unfair question for any writer. If you say yes, you're an arrogant d—-head. If you say no, you're a clueless dolt. Interestingly, if you ignore the question entirely, you're seen as both, my specialty. I can tell you this: There was a woman in 1989 that was committed by her family to an Ohio mental health facility largely because she thought she was pregnant by Bill the Cat. If this is what you meant, I'm happy to say yes, I recognize Bloom County's influence but I'll stop short of embracing it, as I do a porcupine." [USA Today, Los Angeles Times]

Creators | Adrian Humphreys profiles Kurt Westergaard, whose cartoon depiction of the prophet Muhammad with a lit bomb wrapped in his turban ignited international protests in which more than 100 people died, attacks on Danish embassies, and an assassination plot against the cartoonist.  "I don't regret anything," Westergaard says. [National Post]

Grant Morrison

Creators | Grant Morrison has signed with the International Creative Management talent agency. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Creators | This profile of Molly Crabapple touches on everything from her ever-growing Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School to her graphic novel Scarlett Takes Manhattan to her international travels. [The New York Times]

Creators | Keith Higginbotham catches up with Mark Waid at Long Beach Comic Con to talk briefly about the state of comics writing. [Long Beach Post]

Creators | Novelist and comics writer Frank Beddor discusses Hatter M, the Looking Glass Trilogy and more. [Orange County Register]

High Moon

Creators | Collaborators David Gallaher and Steve Ellis chat briefly about High Moon. [Comics Alliance]

Creators | Sequential Tart interviews Shaenon Garrity and Andrew Farago. [Sequential Tart]

Blogosphere | Alan David Doane has five questions for Tom Spurgeon about The Comics Reporter and comics journalism. [Trouble With Comics]

Comics | Thriller devotee Johnny Bacardi pens an ode to the short-lived DC Comics series created by Robert Loren Fleming and Trevor Von Eeden: "... it was such a huge pile of odd ideas and characters, and I suppose many who tried to embrace what it had to offer were simply overwhelmed by all the...stuff...that Fleming had cooked up. I would imagine that sometimes it seemed like just too much. Indeed, that was my reaction, as I recall, after I had finished issue #1. But I was more intrigued than off-put. I think I was in the minority." [Trouble With Comics]

Art and design: Todd Klein kicks off a multipart study of the Legion of Super-Heroes logos. [Todd's Blog]

And second, Farscape creator Rockne S. O'Bannon posted on Twitter that he's working on a "top secret" project for the publisher. He didn't offer any other details, and neither did BOOM! when asked.