Comic Book Resources

Straight for the art | Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA

Tim Burton's Joker

MTV.com has pictures from the Tim Burton Museum Of Modern Art Exhibition going on in New York, which includes artwork the director created for his Batman movies and his never-made take on Superman. You can also read their related article here.

Straight for the art | Mock Inglourious Basterds comics

Inglourious Basterds #1

These have been making the rounds the last couple of days ... CHUD posts a series of faux Inglourious Basterds comic book covers they found on Harry Knowles' Twitter feed that look like they were created in the 1970s. Cool stuff; go check out the rest of them.

Update: The covers were created by Martin Duhovic.

Wes Anderson discusses possible Fantastic Mr. Fox spin-off comic

I've been hearing a lot of good things about Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, the animated movie about fox and his family fighting evil farmers. I haven't seen it yet, but apparently there's a comic called WhiteCape in one of the scenes that Anderson is considering turning into a real comic.

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Zack Whedon to write Terminator miniseries for Dark Horse

Zack Whedon

Among the comics coverage on Time.com's newly launched Techland site is this announcement that screenwriter Zack Whedon, brother of Joss Whedon, is penning a six-issue Terminator miniseries for Dark Horse.

"I just turned in the first script and I’m very excited about it," he writes on Techland. "I love Terminator. I think that movie is so good. Holy Toledo is it good. Now I get to play in that universe and make up Terminator stories of my own that people will get to read. I am not a big-time, famous dude and yet now I am choreographing action sequences set in a post-apocalyptic future overrun by evil cybernetic organisms hell bent on destroying the human race. How is that possible?! I’ll answer your question, Made-Up Person. It’s possible because in comics it doesn’t cost 150 million dollars to tell that story. They can put an idiot like me in charge!"

Whedon, who co-created Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog with brothers Joss and Jed and actress Maurissa Tancharoen, wrote the upcoming Dr. Horrible one-shot for Dark Horse and has penned episodes of the television series Fringe and Deadwood.

Shady Talez comic coming from Marvel?

Eminem

ScreenDaily.com is reporting that New Warriors writer Kevin Grevioux, who also wrote the Underworld movies, is teaming with writer-producer Dallas Jackson to write Shady Talez, a four-issue comic book series due out in 2010 under the Marvel Icons imprint.

According to ScreenDaily.com, the comic is based on a movie of the same name that will star rapper Eminem. He's also co-producing it, along with Jackson, Grevioux and I, Robot producer John Davis. The 3D film is said to be in the vein of The Twilight Zone and Creepshow.

It seems odd that Marvel would use its Icon imprint for something like this, since it seems to be reserved for creator-owned comics by their biggest creators, but I guess it's not out of the realm of possibilities. I checked with Marvel, and they had no comment.

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Google

Legal | Google and a group of authors and publishers have until Friday to revise a proposed settlement over the Internet giant's plans to make millions of out-of-print books available online. They originally were given a deadline of Nov. 9. DC Comics is among the parties that objected to the terms of the agreement -- -- $125 million and a registry to identify and compensate copyright holders -- arguing that it violates international copyright law. [Bloomberg News, Media Decoder]

Legal | The sentencing of Christopher Handley, the 39-year-old Iowa man who in May pleaded guilty to possessing manga depicting children in sexual situations, is scheduled for Jan. 25. He faces up to 15 years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release. [ICv2.com]

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H. R. Giger's Batmobile design

...would have looked something like this:

Batmobile by H.R. Geiger

The essential Super Punch has more images and information on Giger's rejected designs for the Batmobile from Batman Forever.

Halloween Reading | Paul Maybury's Aliens strip

Aliens by Paul Maybury

Artist Paul Maybury posted a short "fan" comic set in the Aliens universe, along with a bunch of other cool random art, over on his LiveJournal.

Via

Batman's new villain says let's go crazy, let's get nuts!

Batman & Robin #6

DC's The Source blog shows us Frank Quitely's cover to Batman & Robin #6, which features Batman's "most dangerous, psychopathic, murderous foe," The Flamingo, according to editor Michael Marts.

Now all the motorcycle-riding killer needs is a string of one-word named "apprentices" of the female persuasion ...

Six by 6 by 6 | Six vampires we'd like to share a drink with

The Count

Editor's Note: As mentioned earlier today, we're celebrating Halloween all this week here at Robot 666. Here's the first of six Six by 6 columns with that theme, by guest contributors Tony Trov and Johnny Zito. They are the creators of Black Cherry Bombshells, the girl-on-zombie web comic from Zuda Comics. This October saw the debut of their newest title, LaMorte Sisters, about a vampire orphanage run by strict nuns.

By Tony Trov & Johnny Zito

(In no particular order)

1. The Count

Tony Trov: The Count is a mysterious force on Sesame Street. He has these neurotic ticks that makes him really intense. The Count counts things, even when there's just one. His math OCD makes him great at figuring out the tip.

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Frank Miller, conservative comment-thread commentator

Frank Miller and Eva Mendes (photo by UGO.com's Dr. Know)

He's one of the most influential comics creators of all time (and my personal favorite, might I add), but Frank Miller has kept a pretty low profile since the critical and box-office failure of his adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit last Christmas. He's reportedly continued to work on scripts for his Jim Lee collaboration All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder and the sequel to the Sin City film adaptation he co-directed with Robert Rodriguez; and of course there's his long-gestating graphic novel that may or may not be about Batman fighting al Qaeda and may or may not be called Holy Terror, Batman! But whatever he's been up to, he's been up to it incommunicado, turning down requests for interviews.

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Straight for the art: Vice's Where the Wild Things Are tribute gallery

Sammy Harkham's Where the Wild Things Are

We've said it once before, but it bears repeating: Vice Magazine has commissioned a murderer's row of 24 alternative comics artists--including Sammy Harkham, Tony Millionaire, Matt Furie, Lisa Hanawalt, Jordan Crane, Benjamin Marra, and Vanessa Davis--for a hugely impressive comics tribute to Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze's long-anticipated movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic storybook. The movie comes out today, and all 24 artists' interpretations are now live. Let the wild rumpus start!

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On Stranger Tides author discusses next Pirates of the Caribbean movie

On Stranger Tides

Back at the D23 event in September, Disney announced they were doing a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, subtitled "On Stranger Tides." This caused several people to wonder aloud, "Hey, does this have anything to do with the 1988 Tim Powers book of the same name?"

Yes, it does. Geoff Boucher with the L.A. Times catches up with Powers, who says Disney optioned the book almost three years ago. His book is about a group of pirates, including Blackbeard, searching for the Fountain of Youth ... which viewers of the third Pirates movie may remember being mentioned at the end of that movie:

"I've watched all the movies several times, of course, and I think the clear thing they would use is the trip to the Fountain of Youth," Powers said. "My main character doesn't overlap with Jack Sparrow at all [in personality or circumstance]; they're totally different characters. I suppose they might overlap the Geoffrey Rush character Barbossa and Blackbeard. The only thing I feel certain they will hold on to is the Fountain of Youth since they telegraphed that at the end of the last movie."

The movie is scheduled to come out in the summer of 2011.

Happy 40th Birthday, Monty Python!

"And there was much rejoicing": Terry Gilliam art from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

It was forty years ago today that the world got slightly sillier: Today marks the 40th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of the seminal sketch-comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus on October 5th, 1969. Greatly beloved by nerds everywhere (God only knows how I'd have gotten through middle school without my two-cassette copy of The Final Rip-Off), the troupe—comprising John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin—has a deeper comic-book connection than simply the shared interests of many of its fans. For starters, there's their send-up of Superman in the sketch "Bicycle Repair Man," which takes a Twilight Zone twist on the Superman concept and plays it for laughs:

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Go look: Gorey's home

Edward Gorey

Filmmaker Chris Seufert is putting together a documentary about the late illustrator and cartoonist Edward Gorey and has a posted a Flickr set of photos taken from the author's house. You know, in case you were wondering what the home of a guy who would write "The Gashleycrumb Tales" would look like.