Amazon

Retailing | Rumors have begun to swirl that online retail giant Amazon plans to open a brick-and-mortar store in Seattle within the next few months to help gauge the profitability of a chain. The store reportedly won’t just sell e-readers and tablets, but also books from Amazon’s newly launched publishing division. [Good E-Reader, Gawker]

Publishing | Japanese publisher Shueisha Inc. released the 65th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s pirate manga One Piece last week with a first printing of 4 million copies, tying the record set in November by the previous volume. [The Mainichi Daily News]

Retailing | Howard Ackler writes about the final days of Dragon Lady Comics, the Toronto retailer that closed last week after 33 years in business. [National Post]

Garry Trudeau

Creators | Garry Trudeau reacts to The Chicago Tribune’s refusal to run last Friday’s Doonesbury strip because it included a QR code that led readers to the charity DonorsChoose. The Trib ran a note that said it does not allow comics creators to “promote their self-interests.” Trudeau said, “I’m not sure ‘self-interest’ quite applies, since (a) DonorsChoose is a charity, and (b) I have no formal connection to it,” and he pointed out that the paper ran Thursday’s comic, which included a QR code that directed readers to Trudeau’s own website — “which actually was in my self-interest.” [Comic Riffs]

Creators | J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman discuss their approach to DC Comics’ Batwoman title: “We keep using this mantra of there’s no status quo in the book, and we want everything to continue moving forward and never have an issue where you read it and go, ‘Oh. Tomorrow everything can be back to normal.’ There is no normal,” Blackman said. [USA Today]

Creators | Jeff Parker has begun to post some of his comics scripts on his website, starting with several Marvel Adventures scripts. [Parkerspace]

Creators | J.M. DeMatteis shares an introduction he wrote for a Modern Masters edition focused on his Abadazad collaborator Mike Ploog. [J.M. DeMatteis's Creation Point]

Oyster War

Creators | Panel Bound talks to Ben Towle, illustrator of Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean and creator of the webcomic Oyster War: “I run into a lot of people who have ideas for this and ideas for that, but look: ideas are a dime a dozen. ‘A school for wizards.’ That’s a great idea. Lots of people have had that idea. Only one, though, had the perseverance to write Harry Potter while her mother died and her marriage collapsed—and then stick with it after seeing it rejected by twelve publishers.” [Panel Bound]

Commentary | Joy Kim ponders the difference between teams and team-ups. In a team story, such as the pirates of One Piece, the members work together and character development occurs in that context. “In contrast, in a team-up story, the individual characters always trump the idea of the team. While there’s a certain amount of entertainment value in watching the various members of the Justice League react to each other’s styles, that’s also often all there is to the story. The character-changing moments for the members happen, for the most part, within their own monthly titles, not in Justice League; even when they do happen outside the character’s main title (usually as part of some big crossover event), they are more about the character as an individual than about the team as a unit.” [Joy Kim]

Digital comics | Ryan Penagos, editorial director for Marvel Digital Media Group and Marvel.com, discusses Marvel’s digital strategy with host Peter Biddle in a recent episode of MashUp Radio. [MashUp Radio]

Digital comics | Sean Kleefeld sets out to review digital-first comics and finds the pickings are slim; almost all digital comics have a print version as well. So he takes a broader look at the state of digital comics and sees a market that is still in flux. [The Comic Book Bin]

Reviews | Paul Gravett posts a generously illustrated review of James Chapman’s British Comics: A Cultural History. [Paul Gravett]

Isotope Comics in San Francisco will host DC Comics’ traveling New 52 Art Tour in December, as all month long they’ll display six 11×17 sets of artwork (from script to inks to the final full-color production pages), along with every page from Batwoman #3.

And to kick it off, they’re planning a pair of events to kick it off on Saturday, Dec. 3. During the day they’ll host an all-ages autograph signing with Batwoman‘s JH Williams III and W. Haden Blackman, followed that night by an afterparty with both creators, Batwoman-themed cocktails and special highball glasses designed by Williams. The afterparty is a ticketed event, and you buy tickets here.

You can find an image of the glass after the jump.

*****

Legal

Legal | Prosecutors in Macomb County, Michigan, rested their case Friday in the second trial of Michael George, a former retailer and convention organizer accused of the 1990 murder of his first wife Barbara in the back room of their Clinton Township comic store. The judge this morning will hear a defense motion for a directed verdict, seeking dismissal due to lack of evidence, before testimony resumes.

George, now 51, was arrested in August 2007, after a detective reopened the cold case, and convicted seven months later of first-degree murder and insurance fraud, among other counts, and sentenced to life in prison. However, the judge later set aside the verdict, citing prosecutorial misconduct — George’s mug shot was shown to the jury — and the release of new evidence that could lead the jury to believe another person was responsible for the murder. His retrial began Sept. 14, and should conclude this week. Prosecutors contend that George staged the killing to look like a robbery so he could collect money from an insurance policy and a shared estate, and start over with another woman. George insists he was asleep at the time of the shooting, and that his wife was the victim of a robbery gone wrong. [Daily Tribune]

Publishing | Chip Mosher, marketing and sales director for BOOM! Studios, left the publisher on Friday after four years. Marketing coordinator Emily McGuiness will take over his duties. [BOOM! Studios]

Publishing | Papercutz has acquired the license for the Three Stooges, allowing the company to reprint classic comics and adapt the 2012 Farrelly brothers movie. [ICv2.com]

Three #2

Awards | Prism Comics awarded its 2011 Queer Press Grant to veteran cartoonist and publisher Robert Kirby for his anthology Three. “I’m slightly overwhelmed, humbly grateful and excited, and full of renewed energy for proceeding with Three — which is now more than ever my magic number,” Kirby wrote on his blog. [Prism Comics]

Awards | Katie Longua has won the 2011 Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics, presented over the weekend by San Francisco’s Isotope: The Comic Book Lounge. Previous winners include Joshua M. Cotter, Danica Novgorodoff, Will Dinski, Max Riffner and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey. [Twitter]

Awards | The entries have been posted for the 2011 SPACE Prize, which will be presented April 21, 2012, at SPACE 2012 in Columbus, Ohio. [SPACE Prize]

Publishing | Geek Out looks at recent moves at Archie Comics, primarily the introduction of gay character Kevin Keller. [CNN.com]

Emma #1

Publishing | Geek Out also stumbles across comic-book adaptations of classic, and contemporary, novels, and seeks out artists Janet Lee and R. Sikoryak, and writer Nancy Butler. [CNN.com]

Creators | The New York Times spotlights the Sunday routine of Joe Quesada: “I am pretty much working all the time. I don’t have a set schedule, per se — it’s just a matter of what comes across my e-mail first. I’ll be reading an animation script, working on an animatic for one of our shows, or drawing covers for our books. I have an iPad that’s set to ping whenever I get an e-mail from work. On weekends, there’s very little pinging, so it’s a good time to sit and draw. I listen to music when I draw — a majority of it is the Beatles.” [The New York Times]

Creators | Dave Gibbons discusses the state of the comics industry, digital comics, and the long shadow of Watchmen. [The Huffington Post UK]

Grant Morrison

Creators | A profile of Grant Morrison is pegged to his Action Comics relaunch and an announced adaptation of his forthcoming graphic novel Dominion: Dinosaur vs. Aliens. [Daily Record]

Creators | J.H. Williams III is profiled by his local newspaper, which focuses, of course, on the newly launched Batwoman. [Merced Sun-Star]

Creators | Mike Carey talks about creating the story for the X-Men: Destiny video game, and touches upon his tenure on Vertigo’s Hellblazer. [God Is a Geek]

Comics | Darryl Ayo explains Frank Miller’s Holy Terror this way: It’s cartooning, using the full power of the medium and eschewing an “adult” subtlety: “What makes Frank Miller special isn’t that he’s a great writer (he’s not) or that he’s an expert draftsman (he is, though) … what makes Miller special is that he can make things look heavy and light at the same time. That he can have ‘Batman’ vault through the great expanse of the hazy, scratchy page and land roughly, awkwardly and gracefully at the same time.” [Comix Cube]

Craft | Kevin Czap admires the way that both James Kochalka and Ron Rege Jr. compose their comics with the whole page in mind, ensuring that all the elements are perfectly balanced. [Comix Cube]

Supergirl #1, by Michael Green, Mike Johnson and Mahmud Asrar

• USA Today talks with Supergirl co-writers Mike Johnson and Michael Green about their approach to the relaunched title, and provides a five-page preview of the first issue, which goes on sale Wednesday. “We’re really excited about the opportunity to hand this book to a female reader who is into things like The Hunger Games,” Johnson says. “This is a strong character with her own point of view.”

• Writer J.T. Krul will be replaced by Keith Giffen and artist Dan Jurgens on Green Arrow with December’s Issue 4. The news comes just days after John Rozum announced he’s leaving Static Shock.

• J.H. Williams III chats at length with Death and Taxes about Batwoman: “In the Kate Kane scenes, all the design is taken out, for the most part. The pages become very traditional, the layouts are not as fantastical; I remove 99% of all the black from the art in those scenes, because I want this sense of clarity. These are all things to make it very simple and very direct and very clear, and this all subconsciously says that Kate Kane — and I think this is key, because her being gay and wanting this character to be a good symbolic character of someone who’s gay, someone who’s accepted that and is not struggling with it — Kate Kane knows exactly who she is, so the clear art and all the details being very prevalent is symbolic of that. She has nothing to hide in terms of who she is deep down inside. Now, when she’s Batwoman, that’s where things become more ambiguous for her. Though she knows who she is as Kate Kane, she still in a lot of way is figuring out who she is as Batwoman. That’s a much darker, spookier world, and less sure; it is also a more extreme and harder-edged world, and the art, these painterly approaches and murky textures in combination with sharp, rigid panel arrangements and more fanciful layouts, speaks to the extremeness of that.”

• IGN.com offers a look at Red Hood and the Outlaws #1, while Hero Complex previews Nightwing #1 and Captain Atom #1.

Legal

Legal | Jury selection is set to begin today in Mount Clemens, Michigan, in the second trial of former retailer Michael George, charged with first-degree murder in the 1990 shooting death of his first wife Barbara in their Clinton Township comic store. George, 51, was convicted in 2008, but later that year a judge set aside the conviction, citing prosecutorial misconduct and the emergence of new evidence that might have resulted in a different verdict. [The Detroit News]

Retailing | Retailer Mike Sterling answers questions about DC’s relaunch, noting his store saw an uptick in sales before the relaunch: “In our case, comic sales have been increasing … slowly, but steadily. And judging by demand for the new Justice League #1 and the interest we’ve seen in DC’s next batch of first issues, we’re expecting a bit of a bump in sales over the next few weeks. Whether that bump sticks, even as a slight net gain after the initial excitement over the new launches peters out and we see what the sales levels on these titles will actually be, remains to be seen. But I’m optimistic. My fear was that our upward store sales trend may have been derailed by DC cancelling everything and starting again, alienating the readership we were building, but for the most part that doesn’t seem to be happening. But, you know, in six months or a year or so, we’ll know for sure.” [Progressive Ruin]

Retailing | Eric Levin, owner of Atlanta’s Criminal Records and co-founder of the Free Comic Book Day-inspired Record Store Day, may have to close his shop by Nov. 1. “We’ve been underwater ever since the economy became distressed,” he says. “We’ve been on a rescue mission for three years. I’m done paying for it by myself.” The store, which marked its 20th anniversary last month, does “above par” business selling CDs, records, comics, graphic novels and magazines. However, that hasn’t been enough to make up for the costs of moving to a larger space and hosting live music events, combined with the recession, a “miserable” holiday season and a market shift to digital music. Tom Spurgeon rounds up reactions from some publishers and cartoonists. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Dark Horse

Publishing | Officials in Milwaukie, Oregon, are negotiating with Dark Horse to move 20 of its 130 employees to the second floor of one of the company’s buildings in hopes of freeing valuable storefront real estate on Main Street to lease to retailers. [Oregon City News]

Creators | Brian K. Vaughan discusses his upcoming Image Comics sci-fi/fantasy series Saga. [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | J.H. Williams III talks about Batwoman, and the media firestorm surrounding the introduction of a lesbian Kate Kane in 2006: “The way DC announced the character way back when put people on their heels a little bit. There wasn’t any solid plan behind the character yet, so some took it as a publicity stunt—and it wasn’t at all. As people started to see there was potential for this character as a deep-rooted one you can believe in, some of that hubbub went away. She’s a legitimate character people can find things to relate with. We’re not being exploitative with her being a lesbian. We’re treating it as with any other character regardless of what their sexual orientation is—that’s a small part of who they are as a person. It’s not all about her being a lesbian and I think that’s made her a bit of a beacon for people to get behind the character instead of it being a publicity grab or something that doesn’t sit as a three-dimensional person.” [FrontiersLA, via J.H. Williams III]

Creators | Craig Thompson chats briefly about his new graphic novel Habibi. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | The works of Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are on display in Shanghai, China, as part of the traveling IllustraBrazil exhibition. [The Wall Street Journal]

Comics | Brendan Wright looks at last week’s Justice League #1 in the context of Grant Morrison and Howard Porter’s JLA #1 from 1996. [The Wright Opinion]

Batwoman #1 variant by Amy Reeder

Amy Reeder, who’ll share art duties with J.H. Williams III on Batwoman, reveals on her blog four variant covers for the upcoming series that, for unclear reasons, won’t be published.

“We had it set up that I would do variants for J.H.’s run and he would do variants for mine (meaning, the main covers during my arc would be drawn by me),” she writes. “AND I got to ink and color these, which really got my creative juices flowing.  It’s been a while since I’ve had that opportunity and I had a blast! So, I’d done four of the five variants, when I had found out that DC decided not to publish any variant covers on Batwoman.”

A second cover can be seen after the break. Visit Reeder’s blog to see more, as well as an unpublished Supergirl cover featuring the Teen Titans. Batwoman #1 arrives in stores on Sept. 14. Reeder’s story arc begins in February.

Batwoman #3 variant by Amy Reeder

The title came out of the same experimental era at the publisher that produced such comics Young Heroes in Love, Aztek: The Ultimate Man and Hourman, and introduced us to Cameron Chase, a cynical, cigarette-smoking agent with the newly introduced Department of Extranormal Operations.

I’ve written before about my love for Chase, which was a wonderful looking glass into the workings of the DC Universe, with Cameron providing an outsider perspective on the actions and lives of superheroes.  She had ties to a costumed character and frequently interacted with the capes-and-tights set — from Batman and Nightwing to Alan Scott and Klarion the Witchboy — but she wasn’t part of that world. Well, not that she’d admit.

Cameron and the DEO far outlived Chase, which unfortunately ended with its tenth issue, part of DC’s “One Million” event. The character had a prominent role a decade later in Manhunter, while the Department of Extranormal Operations, also created by Williams and Johnson, has become a fixture of the DC Universe, even appearing in the Green Lantern movie.

“Chase was one of those series that came out at time when almost everything new from DC was getting the axe within a year due to slow sales,” Williams writes on his blog. “Ironically, as we were getting chopped, a groundswell buzz was happening around what we were doing, but unfortunately not in time to save the series. In all the years since then, Chase The Series had garnered a cult status, becoming almost more popular after its death than when it was alive.”

As Williams’ “Finally!” title suggests, this is the first time Chase has been collected; I tracked down the full run several years back at Mid-Ohio Con, where all 10 issues were bagged together for a decent price. The 352-page trade paperback goes well beyond that, though, collecting Batman #550 (Cameron Chase’s first appearance), plus a bunch of stories from the Secret Files line. It arrives in stores on Dec. 21.

Star Wars art by JH Williams III

LucasFilm and Abrams Books have teamed up for Star Wars Art: Comics, a collection of artwork from “the entire history of Star Wars comics publishing,” from the first Star Wars adaptations published in 1977 by Marvel to the present day.

According to the press release, the artwork has been “hand-selected and curated” by George Lucas and will feature interior pages and fully painted covers from artists such as Al Williamson, Howard Chaykin, Adam Hughes, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave Dorman, and many more. It will also feature newly commissioned art by 20 creators, including John Cassady, Sam Kieth, Mike Mignola, Paul Pope, Frank Quitely, Jim Steranko and, as seen above, J.H. Williams III.

“I wanted something that was a new character of my creation,” the artist wrote on his blog. “I had been told that George was a longtime comics fan. So I also wanted to go for this classic giant monster versus hero idea, like stuff you might see in old [Jack] Kirby comics, but here it needed to be a mechanical weapon that looked like a creature, giving a sense of story beyond fighting a giant monster. This gives more weight for the snippet of a bigger unseen plot idea. And the scene had to have a strong design sense to it, so it could have a signature look that could be identified with my sensibilities, but still felt like Star Wars when you look at it.”

This is the second book in Abrams’ Star Wars Art series; the first one, subtitled Visions, was released last year. Star Wars Art: Comics has an introduction by Virginia Mecklenburg, a foreword by Dennis O’Neil, and a preface by Douglas Wolk. It features a cover by Dave Dorman and is due in October.

Robert Crumb

Creators | Robert Crumb has decided not to attend Graphic 2011, an arts festival scheduled for Aug. 20-21 at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Crumb told The Australian he withdrew from his headline appearance because of an article in the Australian newspaper The Telegraph that called him “a self-confessed sex pervert.”

“It’s a very, very disappointing situation,” Graphic co-curator Jordan Verzar wrote on the show’s Facebook page. “There were a legion of people eagerly anticipating his visit and the Graphic team and Sydney Opera House had been working for months to pull together the shows he was involved with and to supply an enjoyable first visit to Australia for him. I sincerely doubt that he will ever make it to Australia now. It’s a very sad day, but I’m still excited and looking forward to the rest of the great shows happening at Graphic next weekend.” [The Australian]

Retailers | Birmingham, England comics shop Nostalgia and Comics was damaged during the riots of the past few days; no one was injured, but the windows were broken. [The Forbidden Planet blog]

Comic strips | For Better or For Worse creator Lynn Johnston has posted her entire foreword for Fantagraphics’ The Complete Peanuts (1981-1982) on her site. [For Better or For Worse, via Flog]

Creators | Batman annotator David Uzumeri interviews Grant Morrison about, well, Batman, as well as Action Comics, Multiversity and more. [ComicsAlliance]

"Saga," from Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Creators | Nathan Wilson interviews Fiona Staples, one of the creators who was name-checked a lot during last week’s women-in-DC-comics discussions. Don’t get your hopes up, though: Staples would rather be drawing horror comics. “You’re limited by a lot of things when dealing with superheroes. There are constraints from the fans, the publishers, and the companies who own the characters. There are the decades of history that bind the characters. It’s possible to be innovative with them, but it’s a struggle.” [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Creators | In a pair of interviews, J.H. Williams III discusses his career and the long-anticipated debut of Batwoman: “I’ve always handled female characters, dating back to my time as co-creator on Chase, then Promethea, and then Desolation Jones, to show how strong they are.  I’m not interested in drawing sexy vixens, but rather realistic women.  I find this much more attractive and beautiful.  This allows them to be fully formed characters, and not just fantasy objects.  It allows you to get involved with them.” [ComicsBlog, Multiversity]

Creators | We all know about musicians who make comics; Josh Flanagan takes a look at comics creators who make music, from Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley to Joe Quesada (seen filling in on guitar with Kirby Krackle). Rock on! [iFanboy]

Crawl to Me #1

Creators | Alex Dueben talks with Alan Robert about Crawl to Me, his new horror miniseries from IDW Publishing. [Suicide Girls]

Creators | Steve Bennett takes a look back at Carleton Waugh and his comic strip Hank, the story of a serviceman returning to civilian life after World War II: “Hank had also lost a leg in the war and he just one of a number of wounded servicemen being targeted by a group of leftover isolationists to ferment discontent and spread racist, anti-Semitic propaganda. The politics were extremely progressive and according to Waugh the strip was ‘a deliberate attempt to work in the field of social usefulness’.” From an artistic point of view, Waugh did some interesting experimentation with lettering, but alas, most of the strips have disappeared. [Super I.T.C.H.]

Commentary | Call this “Caleb reads the comments so you don’t have to”: Robot 6 contributor J. Caleb Mozzocco provides a quick roundup, with links, at the big comics controversies of the past week or so, in case you were too busy living your own life to follow them closely. [Every Day Is Like Wednesday]

Reviews | Rob Clough reviews Jason’s Isle of 100,000 Graves. [The Comics Journal]

Reviews | Richard Bruton dives into the latest Alan Moore opus, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen—Century 1969. [The Forbidden Planet blog]

Craft | Gerry Giovinco meditates on how hard it actually was to draw a straight line (let alone a curved one) before we had computers to do it for us. [CO2 Comics]

This matchmaking was done by San Francisco comic store owner James Sime of Isotope Comics. Sime is a regular on the Bay Area music scene, and finagled himself and Williams backstage at a recent Blondie show. Sime tells a heartwarming story on the Isotope blog of a impromptu moment of mutual admiration between Williams and the band members of Blondie. That chance meeting turned into business, as their full-on collaboration was announced for a deluxe edition of Blondie’s new album Panic Of Girls. No word yet on when this will see the light of day, but now you have one more reason to tune in to Blondie.

Go over to Williams’ own site to read his thoughts.

Ceçi n'est pas un Batman

DC spent the day rolling out announcements about the Batman books in anticipation of its line-wide September relaunch…with one conspicuous absence until the very end.

So, Bruce Wayne is reclaiming sole possession of the mantle of the Bat, while Batman and Detective Comics are swapping creators: Batman writer/artist Tony Daniel will be taking over Detective Comics, while ‘Tec writer Scott Snyder is taking over Batman with artist Greg Capullo of Spawn fame. Both books will star Bruce Wayne rather than his protege and stand-in Dick Grayson beneath the cape and cowl.

Also featuring Bruce as the one true Batman will be the relaunched Batman and Robin and Batman: The Dark Knight, both of which retain their creative teams of Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason and David Finch (formerly the series’ sole creator) and artist Jay Fabok respectively.

Gotham City’s women vigilantes are well-represented in the line-up, as the publisher announced new series for Batwoman, Batgirl, Catwoman, and Birds of Prey. Batwoman retains its previously announced creative team of J.H. Williams III, Amy Reeder, and Haden Blackman. Batgirl, featuring the formerly paraplegic Barbara “Oracle” Gordon in Bat-gear once more, will be written by franchise staple Gail Simone and illustrated by Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes. Another pair of Bat-veterans, writer Judd Winick and artist Guillem March, will launch a new Catwoman series. And DC newcomer Duane Swierczynski will team with artist Jesus Saiz for the new Birds of Prey.

With Dick Grayson out from under the point ears, he’s slipping back into his previous crimefighting guise in Nightwing, from writer Kyle Higgins and artist Eddy Barrows. Grayson’s fellow former Robin, Jason Todd, will get his turn in the spotlight as well, as the star of the new ongoing series Red Hood and the Outlaws; he’ll team up with Arsenal and Starfire under the guidance of writer Scott Lobdell and artist Kenneth Rocafort.

(No word on the other two ex-Robins currently on active duty, though: The fate of Tim Drake of Red Robin and Stephanie Brown of Batgirl is currently unknown.)

DC also announced at IGN that Winick will be pulling double duty in the Bat-books by debuting Batwing, a series illustrated by Ben Oliver that will star the Batman of Africa from Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated.

Speaking of which…after a day of agita-inducing silence about the future of both the title and the writer’s overall presence in the Batman line, DC and Grant Morrison finally announced that Batman Incorporated will return with a new #1 issue in 2012, with a planned 12-issue run that will wrap up his six-year tenure with the character. For several years now, Morrison’s Batman comics have established the line’s most important plot points, most notably by blasting Bruce Wayne through the timestream and installing Dick Grayson in his place, then by bringing Bruce back, outing him as the “financial backer” of Batman, and instituting a franchise approach in which “Batman Incorporated” draws on an army of like-minded crimefighters from around the world. Certainly some of that is still intact — Marts says Batwing spins right out of Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated storyline, while IGN’s Joey Esposito says the series “should answer the question about whether or not Batman Incorporated is still relevant.” But with Dick Grayson resuming his Nightwing role and Bruce trumpeted to the heavens as “the one true Batman” — not to mention the absence of any mention of Batman Inc. members Red Robin Tim Drake and Robin Stephanie Brown, and Barbara Gordon’s tenure in the key support role of Oracle coming to an end — it seems like Morrison’s much ballyhooed two-year plan for Batman Incorporated‘s complicated conspiracy storyline will require some revision to reach its original conclusion. Still, the good news is that that conclusion is indeed headed our way, after a brief hiatus during which Morrison will work on a project yet to be revealed.

Static Shock Special

Artist J.H. Williams III shares what I believe is a variant cover for the upcoming Static Shock Special DC is putting out as a homage to Dwayne McDuffie. At least, the solicitation for the title lists Derec Donovan as the cover artist.

At any rate, it’s a wonderful piece of art that Williams says was inspired by funk music.

“I wanted to try some different things in attitude,” Williams wrote on his blog. “The Milestone characters always had this unusual quality to them, which I think made them pretty cool. And some of them seemed to have this Funk aspect to them. Now when I say Funk, I’m referring to Funk Music. So I decided to see if I could bring that more forward in attitude for this cover. The result is pretty effective. It still has this iconic quality that the genre should have, but now it feels like Funk meets Superheroes to me. Resulting in something different than what I usually do.”

You can see the steps in his creative process, from rough sketch to the final version, over on his blog. The comic comes out in June.

Teen Titans 93

For longtime comic readers like myself, there’s nothing quite like when a team book introduces a new character to the mix. This Wednesday, artist Nicola Scott gets to bring Solstice, a character she designed, into the Teen Titans mix with the release of Teen Titans 93. In addition to discussing Solstice, Scott notes the shift in tone/sense of fun that series writer J.T. Krul has brought to the series; how she considers herself a character-driven artist; as well as the lessons learned from collaborating with the likes of writer Gail Simone/dealing in subtext (among other topics). At the end of the interview, she invites fans to suggest characters we’d like to see her draw in the future–be sure to chime in with your ideas in the comments section.

Tim O’Shea: Over at the Source, you expressed part of what appealed to working with J.T. Krul on Teen Titans. ” Character, tone, direction. He has blown me away.” What is it about Krul’s approach to character and tone that appealed to you?

Nicola Scott: Over the last couple of years the tone of the book seemed to have become quite dark, and seemed to be missing youthful energy and a sense of fun. The characters weren’t quite connecting in the way DC hoped for them to. Straight off the bat JT had them feel exactly like their regular selves. The comradery had returned too and that’s such an important ingredient with the Teen Titans. The script for the first issue was fun, a great recap of the characters and who they are to each other. There were some gags and some drama and it felt like young people with huge responsibility. Another ingredient that I think was important, was bringing it back to the core members. A couple of new additions is fine but when most of the cast is unrecognizable to outside readers, it’s hard to grow the audience.

O’Shea: Some artists dread working on a team book, because of the demands involved with multiple characters. You seem to relish working on a team book, why do you think you can approach it so enjoyably on assignment than many others cannot?

Scott: I consider myself a character driven artist. I like to know the characters, their body language, their emotional range and their personality types. That’s what I like to draw. With team books you get to play around with so many different types of heroes (and villains) and how they interact with each other. I make a point of making all my characters as different from each other as possible so that what plays out between them is more satisfying for me and, hopefully, the reader too. It really is more interesting to look at. As exhausting as it is, I’m really grateful to have worked on so may important DCU teams. I had not worked with teams previously so it was a great learning curve.

O’Shea: Teen Titans 93 features the introduction of a relatively new character, Solstice. Were you involved in designing the character? How enjoyable is it to help define the look of the character (given that you’re the first artist to draw her on a regular basis)?

Scott: I did get to design her. I come from an acting background where I’ve also worked as a production/costume designer so creating new characters is extremely satisfying. As artists we’re all constantly designing looks for new characters, from passing extras, to bit parts, to fully fledged new leads. Solstice came about over a few months of communication with JT and Rachel Gluckstern, our editor. JT and Rachel refined her personality and power set and provided me with some general guidance regarding her look. I played around with some ideas, doing a bunch of sketches and eventually we ended up with how she appears in the book.

O’Shea: What advantages does your art gain when it is inked by Teen Titans inker Doug Hazlewood?

Scott: Doug and I have worked together now for five years. It was my first editor at DC, Mike Carlin, who hooked us up. My pencils are extremely tight and as I’m very fussy about the details of my characters, especially their faces, I get really disappointed when they look different after the inking stage. With Doug, I know it’s always going to look right. He’s incredibly reliable and always delivers what I want. Doug has a really nice clean, smooth, old school style that really suits my work. Luckily, most the the work we’ve done together has suited that kind of clean finish.

O’Shea: You’ve made no bones that Teen Titans is a book you’ve wanted to work on since starting your career, can you single out an issue or scene that has been most enjoyable to take on so far?

Scott: I love these guys so much and I love it when they’re happy but the story line I’ve most appreciated drawing is the relationship between Conner and Cassie. I see them as one of the genuinely loving couples in the DCU and I have every faith that their future lies together. But every relationship has it’s bumps and they can really be confusing when you’re young. It’s very clear to me that these two still love each other very much so drawing their separation is a subtle art. JT is really pulling on the heart strings in a very delicate way.

O’Shea: While you’re not currently collaborating with writer Gail Simone, you have clearly enjoyed working with her in the past on a variety of DC titles. What kind of storytelling lessons have you taken away from working with Simone?

Scott: Gail and I have this incredibly easy, synchronized approach and understanding of what we want from our collaborations. In terms of tone, character and humor, we’re on the same page but more importantly we build on each others ideas in a really effective way. Gail writes a lot of subtext that isn’t always evident on the scripted page but reveals itself as you’re drawing. That’s how I feel anyway. Not every artist see’s it but it’s there. I love finding these layers and bring them to the surface. In turn, Gail writes layered, complex and subtle scenes, specifically for me, because she knows I’ll hit the right mark. I think we both have a similar view of just how absurd real life can be and we’re both really interested in capturing those moments, often for their humour, but also for their tragedy.

O’Shea: As impressive as your art consistently is, I’m curious, which of your fellow creators do you most look forward to reading these days? Who impresses you?

Scott: I generally tend to get really behind with my reading as I don’t get too much time and my comp box is, as a rule, months late. I always read Gail’s work but I’m also a huge fan of Greg Rucka and Grant Morrison. There’s all kinds of art that really appeals to me. J.H. Williams through to Ivan Reis. George Perez and Adam Hughes were and are at the top of my favorite lists.

O’Shea: Enough answering questions–let’s switch the dynamics–are there any questions you’d like to toss out to our readers?

Scott: I don’t get to many American conventions so I don’t get to make contact with many U.S. readers. What would they like to see me draw in future?

The delays behind [Batman Inc.] are a combination of slowness on Grant and Yanick’s part. Yanick does all of his work on a digital pad and his art process requires a whole lot of lead time that Grant Morrison just doesn’t give him. On the Saturday morning, Grant had just e-mailed Yanick 12 pages of script for issue #5 when Yanick’s deadline for the art is in 1 week…so yeah, expect some more delays for issue 5 unless they get a fill-in artist.

—ComicBookDaily.com’s David Diep, reporting from this past weekend’s Wizard World Toronto convention, on what he learned about the future of DC’s flagship Bat-book, Batman Incorporated—presumably straight from artist and con guest Yanick Paquette himself.

A look at the solicit as posted on DC’s website shows that the book is scheduled for release on April 20. But the company still has it running with a J.H. Williams III cover that was actually used on issue #3 when it finally came out two weeks ago, likely because that issue was originally supposed to come out in January and thus had an “iconic” cover as part of that month’s line-wide cover gimmick, which was obviously no longer in effect. Issue #5 is now slated to run with the cover you see above, also by Williams…who is himself the co-writer/co-artist of the even more delay-plagued Batwoman. On the other hand, the company just signed the prodigiously talented artist Chris Burnham, who made a splash as the co-artist of the climactic Batman & Robin #16 and was already on board to draw Batman Incorporated #4, 6, and 7, to an exclusive contract. So there’s still some joy in Gotham after all.

UPDATE: In the comments below, Paquette himself steps in to clarify, saying that to the best of his knowledge DC hasn’t delayed issue #5 yet, Morrison’s been rock-steady schedule-wise recently, the Williams cover above has always been planned for this issue, and he himself is the one to blame for the schedule hiccups if blame someone we must. He also points out I coulda emailed him to ask him about this stuff, which: fair enough. (In all fairness to me, though, I never said the book was officially delayed, or that the cover above had been created for any other issue.)

(via Sequential)

Batwoman #3

J.H. Williams III has commented on last week’s news that DC Comics is again postponing the debut of the eagerly anticipated Batwoman, saying, “This was not our choice, and as to why, I’m not at liberty to really discuss.”

The series, by Williams, W. Haden Blackman and Amy Reeder, previously had been set to premiere in February. However, in January the publisher rescheduled the first issue for April, the date that appeared in the sneak peek included in last week’s comics. But even as those books arrived in stores, the publisher was canceling solicitations for Batwoman #1-2.

“It’s a bit ironic that the release has been pushed back again considering that DC decided to show preview pages this same week,” Williams wrote Saturday on his blog, where he also previewed the cover for Issue 3.

He assured fans that “work is still commencing,” with the latest delay allowing the creators to complete more work: “The only real downside is that solicits were pulled on us twice, making readers heads spin, wish that didn’t happen, but it has, let’s just make the best of it. I’m fast approaching the middle of issue 3’s interior art, Haden and I’ve started working on script for issue 8, the first 5 covers are done, and Dave [Stewart] has had issue 2 in his hands for his special magic touch.”

DC has yet to announce a new release date for Batwoman #1.

Sneak peek of Batwoman #1

Even as DC Comics previewed Batwoman #1 on Wednesday, word circulated online that the publisher has again canceled orders for the first two issues for resolicitation at a later date.

The move, revealed Tuesday in an email to retailers and confirmed by Comics on the Green and The Launchpad, marks the second delay in as many months. The highly anticipated series, by J.H. Williams III, W. Haden Blackman and Amy Reeder, previously had been set to debut in February. But in January, the publisher rescheduled the first issue for April — a date that appears in sneak peek included in this week’s DC titles.

Although Batwoman, which spins out of Williams and Greg Rucka’s acclaimed run on Detective Comics, was widely expected to debut last summer, Williams explained in January that was never the case.

“February had been decided on the launch date by the company with reservations about that from me,” he wrote on his blog. “I felt that was a bit too soon in a realistic look at work progression. One of the reasons for this was that I had been seriously committed to making appearances around the world over this past year. I think maybe 3 months or more of work loss occurred during that time. I kept trying to point this out whenever discussions about schedule came up. When first discussing the launch date earlier last year we had originally wanted April 2011, and now ironically that is what we have. Only after solicits stating otherwise, causing some unnecessary frustrations.”

I’m still in shock over the sudden, tragic death of comics writer, Milestone Media co-founder and animation producer Dwayne McDuffie, as I’m sure many of his fans, friends and fellow creators are. I’ve rounded up some thoughts and memories from some of those folks, as well as a few items of note about memorials and some of his work.

• If you’re attending the Emerald City Comicon March 4-6, they’ve announced a memorial panel remembering McDuffie that will take place Saturday at 7 p.m. in Room 4C1-2. Per writer Mark Waid, C2E2 is also planning to hold one.
• Both Heidi MacDonald and Rich Johnston posted pages featuring the parakeet metaphor that McDuffie first introduced in Hardware #1 — a scene that, for me personally, sparked one of those lengthy late-night discussions about society, racism, politics and a whole lot of other things with my older brother. As Heidi points out, McDuffie revisited it in both X-O Manowar and at the end of the Milestone Forever two-parter, basically bookending the life of the Milestone Universe.
• The Weekly Crisis, meanwhile, looks at a poignant page from McDuffie’s more recent Fantastic Four run.
• The good folks at the Project: Rooftop site have declared “McDuffie Week” at their site, and have put out the call for redesigns of Static. Dean Trippe writes: “Dwayne’s work in the field of comics and animation was near-universally respected. His knowledge and understanding of the DCU heroes in particular, always meant a lot to me. He worked for Marvel, DC, founded Milestone along with Denys Cowan, Michael Davis and Derek T. Dingle, achieved more respect and admiration as a screenwriter for Justice League Unlimited and other DC animated projects, faithfully bringing the light of our heroes to the non-comics-reading public. Dwayne has left us far too soon, with too many wonderful stories left untold.”

Comic Book Resources has a collection of reactions from various creators. Here are a few more that creators and bloggers have posted on their own sites; also, Tom Spurgeon has a Collective Memory post with more that he’ll keep updating. You can also follow the hashtag #DwayneMcDuffie on Twitter, where McDuffie was a trending topic earlier this week.

• Writer Peter David: “I will never forget sitting in his office as we worked out storylines. There was more than just his physical presence (he was well over six feet tall). He seemed to radiate confidence in his abilities, which was entirely warranted, and he was determined to roll with whatever curves Cartoon Network might throw his way and turn them into the best stories possible. He had boundless enthusiasm not only for his work, but for the sheer creative process. To say he will be missed is to understate it. I offer condolences not only to his family, but to the entirety of fandom for losing one of the great ones.”
• Wruter Warren Ellis: “We talked – and occasionally argued – for years, at my message board. I had huge respect for both him and his work. Later, he was good enough to hire me to write a JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED cartoon for him. I had a terrific time doing that: turned out he was great to work with, too. if you had to pick out ten people in this poxy business whom you’d stand in front of when the shit started flying, Dwayne would be on most people’s lists.”
• Artist J.H. Williams III: “He was always one of the best creators this industry had the luxury of claiming. His work is memorable not just for his forward thinking in terms of ethnic characters, but also for the coolness that always seem to come along for the ride with his stories. I had the fortunate but very brief time to have worked with him while Milestone was on the rise for DC Comics. It was Milestone that really seemed to be willing to give me some of my first shots at being a professional artist. My gratitude for that can never be forgotten, and neither will Dwayne’s offerings.”
• Artist Colleen Doran: “Dwayne was incredibly cool to me at Milestone. Nothing about the demise of the series was Milestone’s fault in any way. I was not only treated with respect and kindness at every turn, but the publisher paid me a very fair kill fee. I really liked the people at Milestone, and Dwayne sent me a wonderful letter about my work on the project, which I treasure.”
• Writer J.M. DeMatteis: “I didn’t know Dwayne well, but I had tremendous respect for him—both as a writer and a man. Dwayne was close friends with my old buddy Stan Berkowitz—they worked together on Justice League Unlimited, among other projects—and the three of us would sometimes go out for lunch or dinner when I visited Los Angeles. The last time I actually saw Dwayne was in April of 2010 (we shared an extraordinary Persian meal and Dwayne graciously, generously, picked up the check), but we worked together last summer, when I wrote a Ben 10 script for him. Dwayne was, as always, fiercely intelligent, profoundly creative, and a genuine pleasure to collaborate with.”
• Writer/artist Gene Yang: “Dwayne McDuffie’s writing first caught my eye when I was in high school. He was the writer behind Damage Control, a Marvel Comics mini-series about a business firm that cleaned up cities after big superhero fights. I’ve followed his career off and on ever since. When he started Milestone Media with a group of his friends, I bought all the books he wrote. I admired his guts, I admired his business sense, and most of all I admired his stories. My son and I are currently watching Justice League episodes that he wrote and edited. At Comic-Con a couple of years ago, I was asked to participate on a panel discussion with him. I pestered the moderator to seat me next to him, just so I could shake his hand.”
• Marvel.com’s Ben Morse: “But then, if you look at the professional career of Dwayne McDuffie, you’ll see a guy who has always done things that appeal and matter to him and achieved success along the way not necessarily because he always made the decisions would necessarily make the most money, but because he was so talented you couldn’t stop him. Read any interview with Dwayne about the creation of Milestone and you’ll have little doubt it was an endeavor he embarked upon because in his mind it needed to be done and there was creative potential there, not because it was going to make him rich.”
• Blogger Chris Sims: “He was a hero of mine. He was a guy who worked hard, who set out to change the world of comics for the better while still telling great stories, and he succeeded. He wrote with skill, social conscience and a sense of humor, three things that you rarely find in one person, especially one as prolific as he was. He wasn’t afraid to call things out for being ridiculous, and more than that, he did it with honesty, even when he caught hell for it. And because of that, he was one of the creators that I always felt comfortable writing about, whether praise or criticism, because I felt like if I followed his example of professionalism, honesty and humor, he’d get it. He inspired me, as much through how he acted on a personal level as through his work.”
• Writer/blogger Kevin Church: “A lot of comics creators (and readers) use the most benign platitudes when it comes to race and gender in superhero books. They say that it doesn’t matter if the latest incarnation of a legacy character is black or white or asian, that it’s not important to the story if Black Manta is a woman this go-round or whatever. Because, you know, people are people, you know? Dwayne McDuffie was hard-headed and impassioned enough to say “Yes, it does.” He brought the experience he had as a black kid growing up in Detroit in the 70s and 80s to every project he got his hands on by choosing directly not to emulate what he’d seen in the comic books he read, but by creating what he wished he had read.”
• Blogger J. Caleb Mozzocco: I didn’t know Dwayne McDuffie the person at all, but I’ve long known Dwayne McDuffie the comics writer (and, to a lesser extent, the animation writer), and I spent a lot of time with that Dwayne McDuffie. Relating the death of a real person with a real family and real friends always seems a bit selfish to me, but then, I think the fact that the passing of someone you don’t really know can still affect you in some small way can be a compelling indicator of just how important that particular person is to the world. Certainly in the case of McDuffie, he was very important in our part of the world. It saddens me to think I’m never going to read another new McDuffie-written comic book, although I’m somewhat heartened by the fact that there are still chunks of his decades-long bibliography I’ve yet to experience personally.
• Blogger Tom Foss: “McDuffie was one of the best. He was the mastermind behind Milestone Comics, an incredibly underrated imprint that has given us quite a lot of interesting characters and poignant stories. He was a key component of the awesomeness of the DCAU shows, and I think he understands the core DC characters better than most.”
• Blogger Johnny Bacardi: “Back in 1993, when my then-11-year-old son wanted me to start getting him comics to read on my weekly Wednesday run, some of the titles he liked were DC’s teen heroes- Robin, Impulse, Superboy. One other that caught his eye was the series above, Static. Now, since I was as much a comics geek back then as I ever was, I read not only the titles I bought, but the titles I bought for him (he liked X-Men, Spawn, Gen13, and other hot books back then too- I didn’t read them often) as well, and I enjoyed Static. McDuffie only scripted the first four issues, along with the mysterious Robert L. Washington III, but was instrumental in creating the character with artist J.P. Leon, the first place I saw his soon-to-be excellent work as well.”
• Blogger John Hogan: McDuffie’s work on Icon and the rest of the Milestone Media characters in the early ’90s was incredibly pivotal to me. The debate that went on in the pages of Icon (the philosophies of Martin Luther King vs. those of Malcolm X, for example) was so incredibly well done that I would eagerly await each new issue. McDuffie was one of the comics creators who pushed the envelope and brought comics into a new age, pushing superheroes further than before.



]]> http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/02/fellow-creators-and-fans-remember-dwayne-mcduffie-2/feed/ 0 http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/01/j-h-williams-iii-addresses-batwoman-delay/ http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/01/j-h-williams-iii-addresses-batwoman-delay/#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:00:59 +0000 Kevin Melrose http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/?p=68441

Batwoman #1

As DC Comics’ solicitations confirmed yesterday, the much-anticipated debut of the Batwoman series has been moved from February to April — the date that writer-artist J.H. Williams III notes he originally wanted.

“Some think that this book was to launch last July,” the award-winning artist writes on his blog, “this was never the case, this was speculation on the part of some. The book was also never to launch in November either. The zero issue which came out at that time was never in the original plans, but was done as a bit of a reminder as requested by DC, and to set the stage, this of course took out time of the work already in progress. February had been decided on the launch date by the company with reservations about that from me. I felt that was a bit too soon in a realistic look at work progression. One of the reasons for this was that I had been seriously committed to making appearances around the world over this past year. I think maybe 3 months or more of work loss occurred during that time. I kept trying to point this out whenever discussions about schedule came up. When first discussing the launch date earlier last year we had originally wanted April 2011, and now ironically that is what we have. Only after solicits stating otherwise, causing some unnecessary frustrations.”

Williams, who’s collaborating on Batwoman with W. Haden Blackman and Amy Reeder, says his schedule was further complicated by the addition of the covers for the high-profile Batman Inc. (He’s since bowed out of that assignment, with the cover for Issue 5 being his last.)

“Even though there has been issues raised in the scheduling and plans being jumped the gun on, DC acknowledges for the greater good of the project we need more time,” he continues. “I’m glad that they saw this was a good idea, this will help maintain a certain standard that we’ve already set in place.”

Visit Williams’ blog for more of his comments, and to see his covers for Batman Inc. Batwoman #1 is set to debut on April 27, according to the DC Comics website (the solicitations released yesterday say April 6).

]]> http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/01/j-h-williams-iii-addresses-batwoman-delay/feed/ 12 http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/01/dc-comics-delays-batwoman-1-until-april/ http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/01/dc-comics-delays-batwoman-1-until-april/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:00:31 +0000 Kevin Melrose http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/?p=68209

Batwoman #1

DC Comics’ Batwoman will undergo another delay, with the publisher moving the series’ debut from February to April.

The news was revealed online yesterday by retailers The Lauchpad and Comics on the Green. “What a surprise,” the latter wrote on the store’s Twitter account. “… It’s a JH Williams book, of course it’s not going to be on time.”

A spokesman for DC, which previewed art from the first issue just two weeks ago, didn’t respond this morning to a request for comment.

The much-anticipated comic, by J.H. Williams III, W. Haden Blackman and Amy Reeder, initially was scheduled to begin in July, but instead DC released a one-shot in November designed to serve as a primer for the ongoing series.

This delay is only the latest bump in the road for the new Batwoman — lesbian socialite Kate Kane — whose introduction in summer 2006 was met with a hail of mainstream-media coverage, perhaps far more than the publisher had anticipated. A long-rumored Batwoman series faced one setback after another until finally, in February 2009, it was confirmed that the long-awaited Batwoman comic by Greg Rucka and Williams would become an arc of Detective Comics, timed to coincide with the “death”-induced absence of Batman. Their tenure ended in December 2009, with Detective #860, followed by a three-issue arc by Rucka and Jock.

The same month their acclaimed “Elegy” arc ended, Rucka revealed he and Williams would continue the story in Batwoman. But in April, Rucka announced he was walking away from the character, and from DC Comics. Less than two weeks later, the publisher confirmed it was still committed to Batwoman, with Williams sharing writing duties with Blackman and art duties with Reeder.

(via DC Women Kicking Ass)

]]> http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/01/dc-comics-delays-batwoman-1-until-april/feed/ 38 http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/12/what-will-the-repeal-of-dont-ask-dont-tell-mean-for-kate-kane/ http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/12/what-will-the-repeal-of-dont-ask-dont-tell-mean-for-kate-kane/#comments Mon, 20 Dec 2010 23:30:57 +0000 Kevin Melrose http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/?p=65143

From Detective Comics #859

I’d be lying if I said that, while following coverage this weekend of the Senate’s repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” I didn’t briefly wonder what this development would mean for Kate Kane, the new Batwoman.

After all, she’s the most notable (if not the only) comic-book superhero whose origin is tied to the law prohibiting gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military: While a cadet at the United States Military Academy, Kate is discovered to be in a secret relationship with another female student. When confronted with the allegation, Kate chooses to resign from West Point rather than lie. The scene, depicted in Detective Comics #859 by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III, is a powerful one.

“Way back — waaaay back — when I knew I was going to be writing Kate, and I knew we’d be telling her origin story, I knew I would write this scene,” Rucka said in a well-timed post that appeared Sunday at DC Women Kicking Ass. “This was, in many ways, the first scene I wrote for Kate Kane, one I kept rewriting and rewriting in my mind until the time came to put it down on the page. I’d done a lot of research into West Point, and the Cadet’s Code of Honor had stuck with me, stuck with me all the more in the face of DADT. In my mind’s eye, even before ever seeing the Bat Symbol of encountering Batman, this was where Batwoman was born — in Kate’s need to serve something greater and to, at the same time, remain true to herself.”

Williams, who’s sharing writing and art duties on the new Batwoman series, commented this afternoon on the repeal, saying, “It’s just sad that this policy ever occurred in the first place. It was grotesque and shameful that we ever went there. And terrible that it took nearly two decades for the folly to be properly dealt with.”

“Now to figure out what this may mean for Kate Kane,” he continued, “we’ll need to acknowledge this in some way, but properly in the plot, much like the policy’s enforcement affected the plot for Batwoman’s origin. Like it informed her past, setting her on the path she now has, this new progress will have to inform her direction at some point in a significant way.”

As curious as I am about how Williams & Co. will address law’s repeal, I’m even more interested in how later writers — those a decade or more removed from the policy — will address the character’s past. The origins of Marvel’s character operate on a sliding scale, with someone like Tony Stark first being tied to the Korean War, then the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War and now (I think) the conflict in Afghanistan. But how will DC revise Batwoman’s history when “don’t ask, don’t tell” is just a relic of the shameful past?

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