Look upon my Microsoft Paint work and despair

Before Wednesday morning’s big news, I was all ready to write about the wish-fulfillment aspects of DC’s reprint program. Maybe next week.

Now, though, we’ve got Before Watchmen*, seven miniseries and a one-shot in the Seven Soldiers mode, and no doubt collection-ready. Please pardon my cynicism, but with all due respect to the impressive roster of professionals involved, this could have easily been subtitled We’re Back For More Cash.

To be clear, I understand DC wanting to make money off its intellectual property.  A while ago I argued that one purpose of the current Shade miniseries is to fill another slot on bookshelves next to the rest of James Robinson’s Starman collections. Starman was one of the rare series where one writer introduced a character (Jack Knight) and took him through a series of adventures, until that character reached the natural endpoint of his life’s particular phase. Neil Gaiman’s Sandman preceded it, and Garth Ennis’ Hitman followed. (Working with writers David Goyer and Geoff Johns, Robinson tied Starman into the JSA revival as well.)

Robinson hasn’t returned to the character of Jack Knight since Starman ended, although he used a few Starman characters in his Justice League work (and I’m pretty sure one of the supporting cast showed up in the year-long Trinity miniseries, with which Robinson was not involved) — but more to the point, no new creative team has explored what Jack, or Sandman’s Morpheus, or Hitman’s Tommy Monaghan, has done since their various series ended. There is a firewall around these characters, if not their unique milieux, apparently reinforced only by friendly agreement. When there are cracks — when Morpheus’ successor Daniel showed up in Grant Morrison and Howard Porter’s JLA, or when Paul Cornell and Pete Woods had Sandman’s Death meet Lex Luthor in Action Comics — it’s a big deal. I’d even go so far as to say that the old Multiverse was an in-story manifestation of such firewalls: all those Golden Age stories shunted to Earth-Two pretty much as-is, with the same going for the Fawcett (i.e., Marvel Family) characters on Earth-S, and yes, the Charlton characters on Earth-Four.

Indeed, at the risk of being obvious, Watchmen exists in its present form because DC didn’t want to let Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons put the Charlton characters themselves through the wringer. Thus, over the past twenty-five years, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Nightshade, Peter Cannon, and the Question have each had their own ongoing series, and each has enjoyed various degrees of success in the context of the larger DC superhero line. Ironically, there’s a distinct Doctor Manhattan influence in both the Captain Adam of Final Crisis and the New-52′s Cap, and the Question’s appearances on “Justice League Unlimited” recast the character as more conspiracy-minded, a la Rorschach. Of course, the Question and Blue Beetle who came over from Charlton have since died, and the New-52 setup doesn’t seem to leave much room for either to return.

The larger issue, though, is the extent to which these characters can be allowed to rest. J. Michael Straczynski, who is writing the Doctor Manhattan and Nite-Owl miniseries, told CBR

[a] lot of folks feel that these characters shouldn’t be touched by anyone other than Alan, and while that’s absolutely understandable on an emotional level, it’s deeply flawed on a logical level. Based on durability and recognition, one could make the argument that Superman is the greatest comics character ever created. But neither Alan nor anyone else has ever suggested that no one other than Shuster and Siegel should ever be allowed to write Superman. Alan didn’t pass on being brought on to write Swamp Thing, a seminal comics character created by Len Wein, and he did a terrific job. He didn’t say “No, no, I can’t, that’s Len’s character.” Nor should he have.

Mr. Straczynski’s response goes to the heart of work-for-hire comics; namely, that DC Comics owns (part of) Superman, Swamp Thing, and Watchmen, and as a practical matter can dictate who writes and draws the comics featuring them. Put bluntly, Alan Moore knew what he was getting into when he took on Watchmen, because it was the same situation he entered into with Swamp Thing. In fact, on a conceptual level there is probably not much difference between Before Watchmen and the mileage Geoff Johns has gotten out of “Tygers,” Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s Green Lantern Corps short story.

The real difference lies in the nature of the stories themselves. Superman and Swamp Thing were created to be ongoing characters with no definite endpoint, but Watchmen, Robinson’s Starman, Ennis’ Hitman, and Gaiman’s Sandman were all finite series. We can argue about whether creative teams other than Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster or Len Wein and Berni Wrightson have “done right by” Superman or Swamp Thing, but when you have a singular vision determining virtually every aspect of a particular series from beginning to end, it becomes a lot harder to disassociate that vision from that series. For example, Straczynski himself is associated pretty strongly with “Babylon 5,” the TV series he created and produced, so much so that any subsequent “B5″ projects would no doubt seek his blessing, especially if the series were considered to have told a story complete unto itself.

To be sure, more “Babylon 5″ might well receive and/or deserve those blessings, just as the Before Watchmen books might be worthwhile on their own merits. Certainly none of the professionals involved sets out to make bad comics, and certainly none of them will want to bring anything less than their best. Still, they’re in an unenviable situation, trying to do work which honors the original while still being original enough to justify its own existence. This is nothing new for work-for-hire comics, but the degree of difficulty is much higher.

And the thing is, DC does not need more Watchmen in the same way that it needs to keep publishing Batman, Superman, and Swamp Thing comics. As long as there is a DC Comics, there will be more Batman and Superman books, with dozens more creative teams looking to recapture what they first loved about those characters. Making sure those characters endure is fundamental to DC’s business model, and if some good comics come out of it, that’s just gravy. Accordingly, DC has no interest in producing the last Superman story, whether it’s “Doomsday!” or “Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?” As we saw last summer, DC doesn’t do endings, it does relaunches.

Accordingly, it’s helped nurture a culture where more of anything successful is implied, if not expected outright. As Tom Spurgeon tweeted, “the real takeaway here may be the sadness that [...] DC’s attempts to do Another Watchmen [are] now becoming doing More Watchmen.”

Now, I am not necessarily arguing against More. Personally, I’d love more of Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang’s Team 13, more Thriller by Robert Loren Fleming and Trevor von Eeden, and more ’Mazing Man from Bob Rozakis and Stephen DeStefano — but mainly because I think those creators could do more with those characters. Conversely, a creator’s triumphant return to a particular subject doesn’t always produce the same kind of work (see, e.g., Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Strikes Again).

At its best, the world of corporate superhero comics allows tradition and ritual to exist alongside creativity and innovation. On Monday I was glad to hear about upcoming collections of Amethyst, Mike Barr and Alan Davis’ Detective Comics, and Len Wein and Dave Gibbons’ Green Lantern. I’m also looking forward to the Trials Of Wonder Woman and All-Star Squadron reprints. Maybe next week I will get to talk about these in more detail. They’re all entertaining segments of ongoing series** which, for various reasons, were highlights either of those particular series or of DC’s superhero line. Each played within the rules of that superhero line, and none set out to be multilayered examinations of the comic-book form and/or the superhero-comics genre.

Nevertheless, it should be an elementary observation, but it bears repeating here: not every superhero comic must follow Watchmen, nor must Watchmen be as exploitable as the average monthly comic. While DC is free to do what it wants with the intellectual property it owns, it should have the same respect for Watchmen that it does for Jack Knight and Morpheus.

Again, it all comes down to the nature of the original work. Not only did Watchmen tell a complete story, set in its own unique world, it was designed specifically to be self-contained. The clockwork motif of an insular system which has to deal with unpredictable elements is one of the work’s core elements. DC may want to honor Watchmen with these prequels, but the work really doesn’t require them; and despite Moore and Gibbons’ exploratory steps to the contrary, the story as it exists almost discourages them.

Look, I know I don’t have to read any of the Before Watchmen comics. I realize these could turn out to be some very well-done comics, and I am guilty of prejudging something of which I have not read one page. It’s the kind of maddening thing which dares one to read it just so one can have an informed opinion, and by that time DC already has one’s money. If this project put these creative teams on the Earth-4 versions of the original Charlton characters — even if DC said This is Watchmen 2 with the names changed — I’d be all for it. That would at least be a touch newer than filling in the gaps of a pretty seamless narrative. No matter how much effort is put into these prequels, no matter how pure the intentions, no matter how polished the product, for a lot of fans this will be a reminder that DC did something because it could, because it would be relatively easy, and because it knew it would attract a truckload of attention. In an artistic field where potential is only limited by imagination, for DC to make such a reflexively conservative choice is incredibly disappointing.

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* [In one respect the title was inevitable. Back when hype about the Watchmen movie was supercharging book sales, DC reprinted a number of single issues under the banner “After Watchmen.”]

** [Amethyst started out as a 12-issue miniseries, and at first it wasn’t part of the main superhero continuity.]

Spawn #26

Legal | Neil Gaiman comments briefly on the settlement agreement that ends his decade-long legal dispute with Todd McFarlane over Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cogliostro, and a handful of derivative characters: “The main thing is, I feel like an awful lot of good things have come out of it. … I think the various decisions, particularly the [Judge] Posner decision, were huge in terms of what the nature of dual copyright in comics is. What is copyrightable in comics is now something that there is a definite legal precedent for. There were a lot of things that were … misty in copyright [law] that are now much clearer. And it’s of benefit to the creator.”

While the details of the settlement are confidential, it’s known that Gaiman and McFarlane now share ownership of Spawn #9 and #26, as well as the first three issues of an Angela spin-off series. [Comic Riffs]

Susie Cagle

Legal | Cartoonist Susie Cagle, who has been covering the Occupy movement, was arrested again over the weekend and subsequently “unarrested” during protests in Oakland, California. Cagle wrote on Twitter that an Oakland police officer “charged and grabbed my arm, threw me so hard it was numb for 5 minutes.” She said she was also told by an officer her release was a “favor.” [The Daily Cartoonist]

Conventions | Comic-Con International has released its complete special guest list for the 2012 convention, which takes place July 12-15 in San Diego. The list includes Mark Waid, John Romita Jr., James Robinson, the Hernandez Bros., Paul Levitz, Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, Nate Powell and Becky Cloonan, among others. [Comic-Con]

Creators | Writer Jim Zubkavich says that in its first week as a webcomic, Skullkickers had more unique visits “than all three printings of Skullkickers #1 combined.” He says he hopes that “a combination of web page view ad payouts, print comic sales, digital comic sales, trade sales and convention sales will work together to keep the series running strong so I can tell the entire story I have planned.” [Fleen]

A.D.D.

Creators | New-media expert Douglas Rushkoff discusses his graphic novel A.D.D., a cautionary tale about the importance of media literacy: “The whole trick in turning something from non-fiction to fiction seems to be less about predicting imaginary scenarios than it is about making the unseen reality visible. So really, what you need to do is come up with visual, identifiable characters and circumstances that depict what’s actually going on in a way that we can see it.” [The Huffington Post]

Creators | Girls co-creator Joshua Luna discusses his new comic, Whispers. [Biff Bam Pop]

Creators | Peter Milligan talks about Red Lanterns and the introduction of a human character to their ranks: “He’s an important new character shot through with pathos, one whose vestigial humanity — and unusual powers — will be key when Atrocitus is trying to save the Red Lantern Corps from destruction.” [USA Today]

Scam #1

Creators | Joe Mulvey talks about his new comic Scam, the trials of being a solo creator, and promoting an indy title. [Graphicly]

Creators | Although there is no official word on the topic, speculation is running wild in New Jersey that 19th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast has been denied admission to the New Jersey Hall of Fame for the third year in a row due to objections to his anti-Catholic cartoons and crude caricatures of Irish immigrants. [NJ.com]

Review | Ron Richards takes an advance look at Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. [iFanboy]

Review | Rob McMonigal gives us the birds-eye lowdown on The Show Must Go On, a collection of Roger Langridge’s pre-Muppets work. [Panel Patter]

Manga | While a manga’s popularity on 4chan might not be a selling point in the United States, a Japanese author is touting her manga (which is scanlated over here) as “a smash hit on the overseas version of 2chan!!” [Kotaku]

While it’s no shock that bestselling author Neil Gaiman would be an answer on Jeopardy!, that one of his lesser-known comics works would appear may come as a little more of a surprise. Matt Lobo tweeted a snapshot from Thursday’s episode referencing Marvel 1602, the 2003-2004 miniseries by Gaiman and Andy Kubert that placed key Marvel Universe characters in an alternate version of the Elizabethan era.

Although the comic spawned three sequels, it was met with decidedly mixed reaction from readers and critics. In short, it was no Sandman — which probably makes it perfect for a Double Jeopardy question. (And, yes, the correct question is, “Who is Queen Elizabeth I?” She was killed by a poisonous-gas device created by Count Otto Von Doom.)

Neil Gaiman

Internet | Sandman co-creator Neil Gaiman joined with Trent Reznor, Aziz Ansari, OK Go and 14 other members of the creative community in signing an open letter to Congress against the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act. “We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services – artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result,” the letter states.

Warren Ellis and Fantagraphics have also come out against the bill, while Peter David, who is against the bill in its current form, takes aim at those who “endorsed the piracy, supported the piracy, enabled the piracy, felt their own actions weren’t piracy, and now refuse to accept the consequences of their own actions.” ComicsAlliance has posted an editorial against the bill and rounded up webcomic reactions to the blackout. [NeilGaiman.com]

Alex de Campi

Creators | Artist Jimmy Broxton, a.k.a. James Hodgkins, shares his side of being asked to leave Ashes, the sequel to Alex de Campi’s Smoke that held a successful Kickstarter campaign last year. “… I’m incredibly sorry about the whole thing, and for me, it’s not just about the money, or lost earnings, or how Kickstarter works, this has come as a huge creative blow. I had committed to spend the next year drawing Ashes, the script is quite brilliant, Alex is an extremely talented writer, I very much wanted to be part of something that I thought was going to be special. I hope people can see that commitment from the work I have already produced for the series.” De Campi responds on Kickstarter, relating what she contends was a tumultuous collaboration process in which she “felt bullied” by Hodgkins. [The Beat, Kickstarter]

Retailing | Ryan Haupt argues that better comics shops are one solution to the problem of piracy, a notion that gets some pushback in comments. Regardless, he does make some good suggestions as to how comics shops can improve (some are obvious, yet widely ignored) and points out the problems with buying comics at bookstores. [iFanboy]

Retailing | ComicsPRO President Joe Field talks up the sixth annual meeting of the retailer trade and advocacy group, being held Feb. 9-11 in Dallas. [Flying Colors Comics]

DC Comics

Publishing | DC Comics Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee talk at length about the thinking behind the company’s line-wide relaunch. “I’ve been using the expression ‘death by a thousand cuts,’” DiDio says. “There are a lot of things that we could have been doing better across the line: We could have been writing better, we could have been drawing better, we could have been editing better, we could have been marketing better. By doing the relaunch it allowed us to examine every aspect of our business and look at it from a point of view of if we were building a business today, how would we build it? How would we create characters? What types of stories would we tell? How would the world feel? And we changed the interior look of our books and we changed the exterior of our books. And by introducing the same day digital aspect, it forced us to rethink our production process. We were faced with a lot of delays. And we were losing loyal fans who were coming week in and week out because the books weren’t there. And we had to make a new commitment to deliver our product on time. People said to me, ‘How’d you let things get so out of control?’ It’s like one day waking up and you’re 30 pounds overweight. You’re not exactly sure how you got 30 pounds overweight, but you know you didn’t eat 30 pounds of food the night before. It just happened.” [Fast Company]

Awards | Sarah Glidden’s How To Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less won a 2011 MEOC Middle East book award, presented last month at the Middle East Studies Association conference in Washington, D.C. [Middle East Outreach Council]

Angoulême International Comics Festival

Conventions | The Angoulême International Comics Festival has announced the Official Selections for the 2012 festival, which will be held Jan. 26-29 in Angoulême, France. Eddie Campbell’s Alec, Craig Thompson’s Habibi and Daniel Clowes’ Mister Wonderful are among the almost 60 graphic novels on the list. [Angoulême]

Editorial cartoons | The Columbus Dispatch suspended political cartoonist Jeff Stahler after finding that his Monday cartoon was too similar to a New Yorker cartoon published in 2009. At The Daily Cartoonist, Alan Gardner posts several of Stahler’s cartoons alongside earlier pieces with similar punchlines. While one can debate whether Stahler lifted his ideas from the older cartoons, it’s obvious that he drew them in his own style, unlike David Simpson, who was recently accused of copying Jeff McNally’s cartoons. [Comic Riffs]

Crime | Several pieces of original artwork, among other items, were stolen from the car of AdHouse Publisher Chris Pitzer while he was in New York City last weekend for the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. Pitzer is offering a reward for any information leading to the recovery of the artwork. [AdHouse]

Creators | Congratulations to Any Empire creator Nate Powell and his wife Rachel on the new addition to their family, Harper Powell. [See My Brother Dance]

Creators | Writer Neil Gaiman talks to illustrator and filmmaker Shaun Tan. [The Guardian]

Batwing #4

Creators | Writer Judd Winick discusses his work on DC’s Batwing comic: “Bruce and Batman are these emotionless beasts who are driven by rage and seek justice and do everything they can to just stay focused on the mission: fighting crime, stopping the bad guy, finding the clues, putting the pieces together. But as we’ll learn, David Zavimbe’s a very emotional character. He’s much more self-aware in that way: He knows what he is, where he’s come from, and what he has to overcome.” [USA Today]

Creators | Artist Ben Bates talks about working on the upcoming New Crusaders digital series. [ComicsAlliance]

Creators | Felicia Day discusses The Guild comics, including the 2012 Free Comic Book Day offering from Dark Horse, as well as her work on Dragon Age: Redemption. [TFAW]

Creators | Sean Kleefeld interviews Rina Piccolo, creator of the comic strip Tina’s Groove and the webcomic Velia, Dear. [MTV Geek]

Analysis | J.L. Bell introduces the concept of a “plumber’s review,” a review that looks at the work through one narrow field of expertise: “Say, a review of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island focused entirely on details of south Pacific navigation, or an analysis of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover for its remarks on coal mining. In the academic world, it’s the comments from the professor miffed that you haven’t said more about the particular event or compound or poetic form that he or she happens to study.” This can be good or bad, he notes, and he points out a roundtable discussion where it proved useful. [Oz and Ends]

Reviews | Kristy Valenti reviews Richard Marschall’s The Sunday Funnies: 1896-1950. [comiXology]

Fashion | Don MacPherson notes the latest in robotic-insectoid couture. [Eye on Comics]

Because a Crisis On Infinite Earths homage would have been too predictable

At first I wasn’t especially excited about too much in DC’s February solicitations. However, the more I looked around, the more optimistic I became. Six months into the New 52, some connections are starting to gel, and their interactions (well, as far as what you can glean from the ad copy) seem more organic. As always, there were a few pleasant surprises in the collected editions, and some details from which to spin hopeful speculation.

But enough with the purple prose — let’s hit the books!

TO UNLIMITED AND BEYOND

The gee-whizziest news of the February solicitations has to be the digital-first format of Batman Beyond Unlimited. I have not been the quickest to adapt to digitally-conveyed comics, mostly because my personal technology level hasn’t caught up. However, I do read a number of webcomics, as well as newspaper strips online, and if the price were right, I’d gladly sample BBU’s features on my computer before picking up the print version. Having Dustin Nguyen and (yay!) Norm Breyfogle involved doesn’t hurt either.

FAMILY AFFAIRS

I like the Legion pretty well, but surely I am not the only one who gets hives reading about the “suspiciously different versions” coming soon to Action Comics. Weren’t we past that…?

Nevertheless, there is a nice sense of connectivity in February’s Super-family titles. Although I am not tired of Springsteen Supes by any means, the thought of Krypto-Armor Superman trying to save his younger self from the Anti-Superman Army (again, with the Legions’ help) is a pleasingly retro idea, even if it does echo that one issue of All Star Superman. Likewise, Supergirl showing up in Superman and Superboy, and the Maid of Might having to cope with the effects of blue-sun radiation, all help bring our favorite Kryptonians together. In particular, I thought this week’s Supergirl used Superman effectively to explain not only his mission, but her relationship to it.

Similarly, February’s issues of Voodoo, Stormwatch, and Grifter will try to (re-)establish a little WildStorm corner of DC’s superhero line — which then, I presume, can reach out to more recognizably-DC books like Suicide Squad. I’m actually reading Stormwatch and Grifter, and I liked Sami Basri’s work on Voodoo, but I’m still not sure this will get me to pick up the latter regularly. The first issue didn’t do much for me, and subsequent solicits haven’t changed that.

THE DEEP BENCH

Bleeding Cool had a good rundown of creative-team changes in the February solicitations, so I will note only a few of them. I’ll miss Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan on Justice League International, but I’m eager to see Nicola Scott and Trevor Scott finishing George Pérez’s Superman breakdowns, and Chris Sprouse and Karl Story should be good as always on Legion of Super-Heroes. Also, it’s not really a creative-team shift, but February’s Batwoman #6 marks the debut of Amy Reeder and Richard Friend in the rotation as regular art team; and Sam Kieth draws a sequence in THUNDER Agents #4.

CALLBACKS

Under different circumstances, I’d hope that the invitation to “[l]earn the origins of Central and Keystone City” in The Flash #6 would be a reference to “Flash Of Two Worlds.” However, with (apparently) no superheroic Golden Age in the New-52′s history, there would be no Golden Age Flash to reintroduce. Otherwise, I’m not sure the Flash especially needs a “character-in-its-own-right” setting like Gotham or Metropolis. Central City is nice, I’m sure, but as long as its topography is conducive to super-speed action, it doesn’t have to do much more.

Almost a year ago, posting about The Atlantis Chronicles, I wondered if Geoff Johns’ Aquaman work would compel DC to reprint Peter David and Esteban Maroto’s excellent 1990 miniseries. Since the solicit for Aquaman #6 now links the continent’s sinking to Mera’s past, I am less confident about such a reprint.

The mention of Pozhar, in the solicit for Firestorm #6, gives me hope that DC will reprint much of John Ostrander’s late-‘80s run on the book’s predecessor. Ostrander introduced Pozhar (and other assorted Soviet-era characters), but they then faded into deep obscurity. It’d be nice to have a Showcase Presents John Ostrander’s Russian Firestorm to get re-acquainted.

I’m not so sure the giant bat of All-Star Western #6 is the same giant bat which figured so prominently in Bruce Wayne’s return to the Bat-books last year. Jonah Hex isn’t a pushover, but I doubt he could permanently put down a nigh-immortal critter created by Darkseid. Still, I suppose this is why we have All-Star Western and not a relaunched Jonah Hex — to give Jonah the flexibility to wrassle with fantastic monsters.

CHECKING IN

While I have not read any issues of Captain Atom past the first, I remain a bit curious about its place in the New 52. Accordingly, I’m guessing — based on nothing concrete beyond the solicitation — that the “strangely similar” threat and the “ending you’ll never see coming” have something to do with his counterpart(s) across DC’s Multiverse.

I have also not returned to Deathstroke after issue #1, but it looks like the solicit for #6 will touch on Slade’s ex-wife and late son, whose stories were told in the pages of the Wolfman/Pérez Teen Titans. Adeline should be pretty much the same: an Army officer assigned to shepherd young Slade through his training, the two fell in love, even without watching the Captain America movie. However, it’ll be instructive to see how the inevitable revisions to Grant’s Ravager origin affect Slade’s motivations. Grant first appeared in November 1980′s New Teen Titans #1, as a selfish creep whose life was ruined (collaterally, of course) by the embryonic team’s fight with Gordanian slavers. Accordingly, in #2, when Deathstroke turned down The HIVE’s contract to kill the Titans, the HIVE turned to Grant. They made him a super-soldier, but at the cost of his remaining youth: he literally burned himself out trying to kill the Titans. Raven gave him a final moment of peace by showing him the illusion that he’d succeeded, but Deathstroke swore vengeance upon the Titans for his son’s death, and accepted the contract the Ravager didn’t complete. Thus, without a Teen Titans to destroy, I’m wondering how the new origin will play out.

POTPOURRI

Did I miss something a year ago? Wasn’t DC Universe Online Legends just an extra-long miniseries? The solicits for February’s issues make it sound like things are about to wrap up, but there’s no indication the series is about to end. I haven’t been reading it, so I have no feelings one way or the other. Still, if it’s an ongoing, it’s kind of nice to think that DC has another “classic-style” title. Ironic, too, that the classic style may be limited to tie-in books like DCUOL, Batman: B&B, and Young Justice.

Not to be unreasonably pedantic about the solicit for Green Arrow #6, but if the touch of “monstrous half-man” Midas “can melt anything,” wouldn’t that necessarily include Green Arrow?

Last month I had a chance to get a little ahead on my posting, so I speculated about the possible fates of Krypto and Wally West before realizing I had to write about the January solicits. That post got bumped back a week, but just about the time it went live there were big stories about both. And that might have been okay, but two weeks ago I mused about a Challengers of the Unknown revival, and here they are in February’s DC Universe Presents #6. Time to buy a lottery ticket, I guess — although I feel more like Gardner Fox dreaming of Earth-Two….

READ ‘EM UNDER A BLUE MOON

I almost forgot to mention the handful of DC titles shipping on one of the rarest direct-market events, the February Fifth Week.  This quirk of the retail calendar can only happen on February 29, and with the New-52′s strict four-week schedule it won’t spill over into week 5.  Thus, 2/29/12 will offer a more eclectic lineup:  DC Universe Online Legends #24, Batman:  Odyssey vol. 2 #5, Batman Beyond Unlimited #1, The Shade #5, THUNDER Agents #4, Legion:  Secret Origin #5, Tiny Titans #49, Looney Tunes #205, Gears Of War #22, Uncharted #4, Spaceman #4, Scalped #56, and Unwritten #34.5.

COLLECTIONS

Probably a lot more people have read Batman: Son of the Demon since it was reissued recently, but I think this is the first time in a long time that its follow-ups have been reprinted. I liked SOTD well enough, although it wears its ‘80s influences proudly. Bride of the Demon doesn’t stand out as much, probably because it doesn’t have the hook of Batman and Talia’s child, and otherwise it’s another Bond-influenced Rā’s al Ghūl story. However, Birth of the Demon focuses squarely on the Demon’s Head, telling his origin in detail. Plus, the present-day framing sequence is pretty rough on Batman, and it’s all depicted in spectacular fashion by Norm Breyfogle. Therefore, I endorse the Bride of the Demon omnibus collection. Like a wise man once said, two out of three ain’t bad.

Speaking of spectacular depictions, the Legends of the Dark Knight hardcover series is turning into something routinely recommendable. April’s Jim Aparo volume seems like an especially good value, reprinting twenty-two issues of early-‘70s The Brave and the Bold in full color for $50.00. If DC sticks with the Aparo series and finishes out B&B (which ended with #200), it’d probably only take another couple of volumes, and you’d be left with a very nice run of team-ups.

I have to admit, I was surprised that the second New Teen Titans Omnibus got as far as “The Judas Contract.” (I thought that would come in Volume 3.)  However, as I keep saying, it’s best to read the Wolfman/Pérez run as a cohesive whole, not a series of discrete arcs. You can’t really appreciate the four issues of “Judas Contract” without the rest as context, blah blah blah, you’ve heard this before. Anyway, for just $75.00 retail, here’s your chance. I do hope DC has a Volume 3 waiting, because that would take us through Wonder Girl’s wedding in #50 and Raven’s transfiguration in the second series’ #5.

Glad to see another Flash Archives on the horizon, mostly because it helps justify my buying the previous five. However, it also includes “Doorway to the Unknown” from issue #148 (November 1968), a spooky little tale (atypical for the series) reprinted a couple of times, which I remember fondly from one of the big 1970s “Best of DC” tabloids.

Finally, this month’s surprise reprint is Black Orchid, a 3-issue Prestige Format miniseries from (as the solicit says) the pre-Sandman Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. According to his contemporaneous Amazing Heroes interview, at the time Black Orchid was a character so obscure that when he pitched the miniseries to editor Karen Berger, she thought he was saying “Blackhawk Kid.” Batman and Lex Luthor appear briefly, but McKean’s art is the real draw (as it were), taking readers from gloomy, monochromatic streets to the lush, colorful rainforest. This miniseries led to an ongoing series, and (I think) to the character even appearing in Ostrander’s Suicide Squad. She’s popped up here and there recently, so it’s not like there has been a great clamor for her return, and this may just be DC’s latest attempt to squeeze more money from Neil Gaiman fans. Regardless, it’s not a bad try.

* * *

Well, that’s what jumped out at me this month. What looks good to you?

Fox has released images and an official synopsis for this week’s episode of The Simpsons, which features a guest appearance by Neil Gaiman. In addition, Gaiman posted a clip from the show which, as you can see from the above screenshot, includes a glimpse of a bookstore display showcasing the author’s work, including The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 1, and The Absolute Death. Clearly they’re not in the Springfield Barnes & Noble.

Here’s how Fox describes the episode, called “The Book Job”: “Lisa becomes disheartened when she learns the shocking truth behind the ‘tween lit’ industry and her beloved fantasy novel characters. But Homer decides to cash in on the craze and forms a team to group-write the next ‘tween lit’ hit, with the king of fantasy, Neil Gaiman (guest-voicing as himself), lending his expertise to the effort. After catching the eye of a slick industry publisher (guest-voice Andy Garcia) at the Springfield Book Fair, the team gets an advanced copy of their work and discovers that the corporate lit business is a bigger operation than they imagined.”

Gaiman previously appeared in animated for in a 2010 episode of Arthur. Check out the clip and images from “The Book Job” below. The Simpsons airs Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.

I’m biased: 12 percent of the titles that they’ve physically removed were written by me. From my perspective, it’s a ridiculous overreaction [by Barnes & Noble]. The idea that these people [Amazon] have a digital exclusive, therefore [B&N] will give them a physical exclusive, too — I’m not sure it’s a sane business practice.

If you force publishers to decide between the Amazon tablet and the Barnes & Noble Nook, some of them may come down on the Amazon side.

Creator Neil Gaiman on Barnes & Noble’s removal of DC’s graphic novels from its shelves after Amazon announced DC’s graphic novels would be exclusive on the Kindle Fire e-reader for a limited time. Gaiman’s comment is a reminder that this action affects real people—and carries a certain amount of risk for both creators and publishers.

Noted in passing: I was in my local Barnes & Noble over the weekend, and while the graphic novel section has shrunk way down (to a single six-bay bookcase), there were plenty of DC graphic novels on the shelf.

Robert Crumb

Creators | Robert Crumb pens a letter to The Sydney Morning Herald, explaining why he pulled out of the Graphic 2011 festival: “I was quite alarmed when I read the article in the Sunday Telegraph. I showed it to my wife, Aline, who said, ‘That’s it, you’re not going.’ She got a very bad feeling from the article. She feared I might be attacked physically by some angry, outraged person who simply saw red at the mention of child molesters. She remarked she’d never seen any article about me as nasty as this one.” Sunday Telegraph staff writer Claire Harvey, meanwhile, responds to Crumb’s comments and criticisms lobbed at the newspaper: “Crumb seems to be living in fear of the reaction he once sought to provoke. It seems a sad place for any artist to be.” [The Sydney Morning Herald]

Passings | Kim Thompson eulogizes Argentina cartoonist Francisco Solano López, who passed away on Friday. [The Comics Journal]

Conventions | Reporting from this weekend’s Wizard World Chicago, the Chicago Tribune talks to former comic shop owner Gary Colabuono, who displayed rare ashcan editions of comics from the 1930s and 1940s featuring Superman, Superwoman, Superboy and Supergirl at the show. Blogger Matthew J. Brady has pictures of the ashcans, as well as a report from the show. [Chicago Tribune]

Comics | The Portland Press Herald profiles Renae de Liz, who’s coordinating the Womanthology charity anthology. Dan Nadel, meanwhile, calls the project “the most expensive comics anthology I’ve ever heard of.” [Portland Press Herald]

Creators | Brian Truitt talks to Michael Coulthard, a.k.a. Shaky Kane, about the November re-release of his “graphic road movie,” Monster Truck, by Image Comics. [USA Today]

Watchmen

Comics | NPR revealed the results from their Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy survey, which saw 60,000 people vote. Watchmen and Sandman made the list, coming in at No. 15 and No. 29 respectively, while several of Neil Gaiman’s prose books also made the list. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien topped the list. [NPR]

Comics | John Parker looks back at Peter David’s long run on The Incredible Hulk. [ComicsAlliance]

Creators | Paul Gravett posts an appreciation of Marjane Satrapi, whose first book, Persepolis, was inspired in part by Art Spiegelman’s Maus: “I realised that comics is not a genre, it is just a way of telling a story where I could feel exactly what was going on. Drawing is much closer to a human being than a photo, because you create the world in your own image, it’s very personal, it’s an international language. Before humans started talking, first they started drawing.”. [Paul Gravett]

Manga | Manga bloggers are celebrating Fumi Yoshinaga in this month’s Manga Moveable Feast, a sort of bloggers’ round robin, and David Welsh kicks things off with a review of a yaoi manga that avoids most of the pitfalls of the genre, Yoshnaga’s Ichigenme: The First Course Is Civil Law. [The Manga Curmudgeon]

Publishing | Bikya Masr profiles Marwan Imam and Division Publishing, “the Middle East’s first true comic book publisher.” [Bikya Masr]

Reviews | J.L. Bell reviews Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes, 1936-1941, which takes a look at the dead branches on the evolutionary tree of comics, superheroes who for one reason or another didn’t make it. [Oz and Ends]

Analysis | Daniel BT looks at cases where artists have reused the same scene in different panels, not cut-and-pasted but completely redrawn. [Sunday Comics Debt]

Events | Montpelier, Vermont’s City Hall will host a 24-Hour Comics Day event Oct. 1. [Times Argus]

Conventions | Perhaps as a result of the March earthquake, attendance at this year’s summer Comic Market (Comiket) was down by 20,000 compared to last year. [Anime News Network]

Fandom | “Whoever knows fear burns at the touch of …  hey, get off my lawn!” [Eye on Comics]

We know Gaiman best for his comics work, but it’s arguably his prose work that made his name for the mainstream public-at-large and the Hollywood types that have hired him for jobs. While none of his comics work has been adapted to the screen, his prose and prose/art hybrids have come to life in the movies for Stardust and Coraline, and the BBC series Neverwhere. He’s been brought in to write episodes of Doctor Who and Babylon 5, and has written original screenplays for movies like Beowulf, Mirrormask and several unreleased projects. Be that as it may, people have attempted film adaptations of his comics work in the past, including an adaptation of Death: The High Cost of Living several years back.

But with Gaiman’s stock in people’s minds continuing to ride high, I’d bet money on more of Gaiman’s comic work making it to the screen. Here’s a crib sheet for the Hollywood-types on what they should do and how they should do it. Take note, I chose to leave out the variety of prose work that would be natural fits for adaptation, even the prose work that’s later been adapted to comics.

The Sandman: If there’s one comic that Gaiman will always be remembered for, it’s The Sandman. It’s his defacto definitive work in the comics form (and arguably the written word), and rightly so. The story of a rebellious brother in a family of gods, the Sandman is the person in charge of the realm of dreams and all that comes with it. It provided a gateway into a world of different stories, and it’s stoked many cinematic storytellers to try to bring it to the big screen. At one point, Quentin Tarantino’s former writing/producing partner Roger Avary was attached to direct, and recently writer/director James Marigold (Walk The Line) was pitching it as an HBO series. The last news released was that DC’s parent company had lined up Supernatural creator Eric Kripke to push it on the television front. Five years ago a TV series might seem preposterous, but with True Blood doing what it does, a Sandman serialized series is feasible.

Signal To Noise: One of Gaiman’s earliest comics works, Signal To Noise follows a filmmaker trying to finish his final project before succumbing to a terminal illness. It’s been adapted twice to other formats (radio and stage) but no film/television translation has ever been discussed. This could be a great cerebral drama that wouldn’t need a big budget; take long-time Stephen King adapter Lawrence Kasdan in and this could be a great film.

Lady Justice: Not many people remember this, and those that do might have a bad taste in their mouth right now, but it’s not Gaiman’s fault. Lady Justice was one of several comic concepts Gaiman sold to a comics company called Tekno Comics that they developed with other writers.  Peel that away, and there’s still a strong concept there: a blindfolded woman holding scales takes physical form in a supernatural version of 100 Bullets, offering wronged women a chance to bring justice to their persecutors. This would work perfect as a serialized story, allowing standalone episodes while also sowing the seeds for a larger arc.

The Books of Magic: The success of the “other” story of a boy magician might skew The Books of Magic for some, but Gaiman’s creation still remains a potent bed of creativity. DC’s head honcho Diane Nelson has a history of shepherding J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books to success; maybe she could do that same magic here.

Death: The High Cost Of Living: One of the most promising of Gaiman’s ouvre, and also the one that came the closest to filming before falling through. For several years, Gaiman himself was shepherding a film adaptation based on his own script titled Death and Me. Guillermo del Toro was signed on as executive producer with Gaiman penciled in to direct, even going so far as to shadow del Toro for a week during the filming of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. It came on and off the backburner for years before Gaiman pronounced in dead in late 2010 due to intervention from DC and Warner Bros. When someone wises up, this could be a blockbuster film in the making — perhaps even more popular than a Sandman film.

Jack Kirby

Legal | Marc Toberoff, the lawyer suing Marvel on behalf of Jack Kirby’s heirs, plans to appeal Thursday’s ruling by New York federal judge Colleen McMahon that the Kirby estate had no claim to copyrights on the superheroes Kirby co-created for Marvel Comics. “We respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling and intend to appeal this matter to the Second Circuit,” Toberoff told The Hollywood Reporter. “Sometimes you have to lose in order to win.” [The Hollywood Reporter]

Creators | Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison chat about Supergods, The Sandman, Superman and more. “…when I did comics, it was also a performance,” Morrison said. “It’s like playing live. You don’t get much time to edit; we don’t really do second drafts in our business. I love that aspect of comics, where you could have a Sandman out and people would be talking about it immediately, and we could be responding to things that were happening all around us and it could be published three months later, or two months later, depending on how late we were. It’s not like writing a book, which is over a span of years like building a cathedral. The comic is so instant. That’s why it covers the seismic shifts of culture very, very accurately.” [Shelf Life]

Jellaby

Creators | Jellaby creator Kean Soo talks to Eva Volin about making the transition from electrical engineer to comics creator (with a little help from Scott McCloud), and his newest project. [Good Comics for Kids]

Comic strips | Jay Stephens and Bob Weber, Jr. have stopped producing their all-ages comic strip Oh, Brother!. “I say with deep disappointment that Oh, Brother! didn’t connect with newspaper editors in this current climate of cutbacks and downsizing,” Stephens told his local paper. [Guelph Mercury, via The Comics Reporter]

Publishing | SmarterComics will release a comic adaptation of The 50th Law, a self-help book written by rapper 50 Cent and Robert Greene. [CMU Daily]

Digital | David Brothers looks back at the digital comics announcements made Comic-Con International in San Diego. [ComicsAlliance]

Conventions | Editor Tim Beedle reflects on attending Comic-Con as a freelancer as opposed to a fan, an experience that included selling a copy of Strawberry Shortcake to a porn star and sharing a hotel room with four women, which was not quite as much fun as manga makes it seem. [Words That Stay]

Comic-Con International

Conventions | Applications for exhibitors and Artists’ Alley for the 2012 Comic-Con International in San Diego are now available. Applications for the former are due by Dec. 31, while applications for the latter are due Sept. 23. [CCI]

Retailers | Comic shop Atomik Pop! will close its Norman, Oklahoma, location on Saturday. Its store in Oklahoma City will remain open. [The Oklahoma Daily]

Process | Letterer Todd Klein shows one page from Fables in all its stages, from pencils through finished piece. [Todd's Blog]

Fandom | Casey Putsch, owner of Putsch Racing, has built a turbine-powered Batmobile replica based on the car from Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns films. Putsch used a Boeing turbine engine from a decommissioned military helicopter to build the car, which can reach top speeds between 165 mph and 180 mph. [The Lantern]

Crime | Some of Brent Anderson’s Astro City and Green Lantern art was stolen from his car in San Diego. [The Beat]

The Massive

Friday was a busy day in San Diego, with a full slate of announcements capped by the Eisner Awards in the evening.

• Image Comics will resurrect the classic television show MacGyver as a five-issue miniseries written by MacGyver creator Lee David Zlotoff and Doctor Who writer Tony Lee, and illustrated by Becky Cloonan.

• Brian Wood’s newest project was announced — The Massive, about environmentalists who survive the last environmental collapse. The comic will start its run in Dark Horse Presents #8 in January.

• Vertigo Executive Editor Karen Berger confirmed that Scalped will end with issue #60.

• Marvel teased the return of the Scarlet Spider.

• DC Comics released more interior art for several of their “New 52″ titles, including Aquaman, Mister Terrific and more.

Rascal Raccoon's Raging Revenge

• Oni Press announced a new book by Robot Chicken writer Brendan Hay and artist Justin Wagner called Rascal Raccoon’s Raging Revenge.

• Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics are being added to their digital app.

• Aspen Comics announced several new projects, including volume two of Shrugged; a new volume of Fathom: Kiani; Dead Man’s Run, a brand new series written by Greg Pak with art by Tony Parker; and Homecoming, a new project from Aspen designed by Michael Turner.

• Viz Media announced three new manga licenses: A Devil and Her Love Song, a romance; The Earl and the Fairy, a fantasy; and Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll, which is based on a cute mascot dog from Hello Kitty parent company Sanrio.

• Yen Press also had three manga licenses to announce: Durara!!, Kore wa Zombie desu ka? and Olimpos, as well as an iPhone/iPod Touch app that will sync with their iPad app. And yes, they are working on an Android version.

• Joshua Hale Fialkov and Rahsan Ekedal, who collaborated on Echoes, have another comic in the works for Top Cow’s Pilot Season, titled The Test. Writer Alan McElroy also talked to CBR about his Pilot Season entry, Anonymous.

• First Comics officially announced their return in San Diego and shared that their YA/submissions editor, Susannah Carson, is taking submissions.

• James O’Barr’s The Crow is returning at IDW, as is Popeye.

• IDW also announced another Artist’s Edition, this one featuring Will Eisner’s The Spirit.

• Abrams will publish The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist in the spring of 2012.

• Syfy will adapt Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt’s The Sixth Gun comic into a television show.

• AMC debuted a new trailer for the second season of The Walking Dead, which will premiere Oct. 16.

• Neil Gaiman will produce a movie based on Roman Dirge’s Lenore.

• A live-action Voltron feature film is in the works.

• Today’s strange-but-true announcement: Capcomm announced a Hello Kitty x Street Fighter crossover that will produce a line of merchandise bearing images of Kitty in various Street Fighter costumes.

• Conan O’Brien “crashed” Comic-Con to debut a new trailer starring his alter-ego, The Flaming C.

• Justice League action figures based on Jim Lee’s “New 52″ designs will debut next year.

Jack Kirby

Legal | Brent Staples pens an editorial for the New York Times on the legal battle between the Jack Kirby estate and Marvel: “The Marvel editor Stan Lee sometimes offered general ideas for characters, allowing the artists to run with them. Mr. Kirby plotted stories, fleshing out characters that he had dreamed up or that he had fashioned from Mr. Lee’s sometimes vague enunciations. Mr. Lee shaped the stories and supplied his wisecrack-laden dialogue. And in the end, both men could honestly think of themselves as ‘creators.’ But Mr. Kirby, who was known as the King of Comics, was the defining talent and the driving force at the Marvel shop. Mr. Lee’s biographers have noted that the company’s most important creations started out in Mr. Kirby’s hands before being passed on to others, who were then expected to emulate his artistic style.” [New York Times]

Awards | Writer Neil Gaiman (Sandman, The Graveyard Book) and artist Shaun Tan (The Arrival, Tales from Outer Suburbia) are among the winners of the 2011 Locus Awards. Gaiman’s “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains” won for best novelette, while “The Thing About Cassandra” won best short story. Tan won for best artist. [Locus Online]

Legal | Jeff Trexler reviews the legal battle between Warner Bros. and the heirs of creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster through the filter of the Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane decision, where a judge ruled Gaiman has copyright interest in Medieval Spawn, Angela and other Spawn characters. [The Beat]

Creators | Nicole Rudick has an in-depth interview with Jim Woodring about his odd visions and the inspiration for Weathercraft and Congress of the Animals. [The Comics Journal]

Retailing | The Boston Globe’s John Dyer talks to two local retailers, That’s Entertainment and Comicopia, about DC Comics’ move to day-and-date digital publishing. [Boston Globe]

Witch Doctor

Creators | Witch Doctor writer Brandon Seifert discusses his Image/Skybound series about a supernatural doctor: “…Morrow’s sort of character archetype — the occult doctor — is a very old idea in horror fiction, but I’ve never seen it played straight,” he says. “Characters like Van Helsing are generally treated as generic monster hunters, and I wanted to see a doctor who approached the supernatural the way a [real] doctor would. And then last in the concept was the idea that all the monsters needed to cause actual diseases from biology.” [io9]

Creators | Tom Field looks back at the life and career of the late Gene Colan. [The Comics Journal]

Comics | Paul Gravett picks the comics he’s most looking forward to from the June Previews. [Paul Gravett]

Comics | Sebastian Strangio looks at several comics — or “gruim-chaek” — produced by the North Korean government. He says the comics are “unabashedly propagandistic, serving up outlandish plots that help inculcate reverence for Great Leader Kim Il Sung and the regime’s perennial battles against imperialists of all stripes.” [Slate]

Retailing | After 16 years in business, Empyre Comics in Glen Burnie, Md. will close its doors on June 30. [The Capital]

Retailing | The American Press profiles Lake Charles, La. comic shop Paper Heroes. [American Press]

reMIND

Webcomics | Lauren Davis spotlights Jason Brubaker’s webcomic-turned-graphic novel, reMIND. “… there’s a lot to enjoy in this online version, from the beautiful, animation-inspired artwork to the epic backstory of love, betrayal, and neurosurgery. And that’s before we get to a mecha-enhanced Victuals fighting his way through a city of lizard men,” she writes. [io9]

Fandom | To help celebrate the birthday of Smurfs creator Peyo, more than 4,800 people dressed as smurfs gathered in Brussels, London, Athens, The Hague, Dublin, Mexico City, Panama City, Warsaw, Moscow, Johannesburg and New York Saturday to break the Guinness World Record for the “largest gathering of people dressed as smurfs within a 24-hour period in multiple venues.” That’s a lot of smurfs. [Metro]

Fandom | Matt Alt translates a 1983 essay from lolicon magazine Manga Burikko telling the otaku it’s time to drop their idealized notions of puberty and grow up. [Neojaponisme]

My First Landlady

Just in time for next month’s San Diego Comic Con, IDW will release Hero Comics 2011, an anthology that benefits the Hero Initiative. The book will feature a new Chew short story by John Layman and Rob Guillory, an Elephantman story by Richard Starkings and Dougie Braithwaite, and a new story called “My Last Landlady” by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg — the creative team on the first five issues of the landmark 1980s/90s DC series The Sandman. The anthology is edited by IDW’s Scott Dunbier.

“When it comes to doing the impossible, there’s a dude who doesn’t really recognize that ‘impossible’ exists. Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one Scott Dunbier. Accept no substitutes,” the Hero Initiative’s Jim McLauchlin said on the HI’s blog. Head over there to check out the first two pages of the story.

The depressing majority of comics seem to be about violence of one sort or another, yet how much violence does the average person have to deal with in their everyday lives? Unless you live in Bogotá or somewhere similar, mostly it’s pretty petty stuff; the odd drunk looking for a fight, the odd crazy shouty person, the odd mad taxi driver, maybe. And I just don’t enjoy violence. I can see that narratively it is often a powerful spike in a story, but I certainly don’t want to dwell on it. I don’t want it in my real life, I don’t find violence entertaining in and of itself, or exciting, or funny.

But sex is happily part of most people’s lives, and crosses the mind most days, I would say, even if it’s just watching your partner get out of bed in the morning. All my stories tend to be about things that mean a lot to me and may be fragmented through dream imagery, or metaphorical settings, but basically, my stories are just about the people and places in my life.

–Dave McKean, artist of Arkham Asylum and many memorable collaborations with Neil Gaiman (including The Sandman‘s distinctive covers), on Celluloid, the upcoming porno-graphic novel from Fantagraphics that’s his first big comics project since his 1998 magnum opus Cages. I like that practical argument on erotica’s behalf. Ideally, we’ve had sex more often than we’ve thrown punches or shot bullets — why not reflect that in the art we make and consume?

McKean’s whole CBR interview with Robot 6′s own Chris Mautner makes for a fascinating read: He fills us in on how he’s been spending his time (lots of comics-esque collaborations with avant-garde musicians), talks about the unique challenging of baring it all (artistically speaking) in an erotic comic, discusses working with live models for some of the book’s sequences, and more.

Neil Gaiman

Politics | The controversy in Minnesota continues over Neil Gaiman’s speaking fee, with a state House Republican committee chairman now recommending a $45,000 cut to the Twin Cites’ regional library system budget to make up for the Legacy Fund money paid to the author and comics writer in May 2010. “I simply subtracted out $45,000 — just making a point,” Rep. Dean Urdahl said. Gaiman responded that the move “seems like a sad way to make a point.” He talks at length with CityPages about the controversy. [Star-Tribune]

Passings | Prolific Argentine comics writer Carlos Trillo, co-creator of CyberSix, passed away over the weekend while on vacation in London. He was 68. Trillo, whose career spanned five decades, collaborated with such artists as Eduardo Risso, Jordi Bernet, Juan Bobillo, Carlos Meglia and Domingo Roberto Mandrafina. [TN.com, via The Beat]

Retailing | Peter Panepinto turns a Free Comic Book Day preview into one of those perennial articles about the potential effects of superhero movies on comic-book sales. [Carroll County Times]

Conventions | Deb Aoki wraps up the first day of last weekend’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival. [About.com]

Flashpoint #1

Publishing | Brian Truitt continues his preview of DC Comics’ Flashpoint event, which puts The Flash in the spotlight. “He’s not about a hundred guys who run fast,” Geoff Johns says. “He’s not Green Lantern where Green Lantern is about this intergalactic space corps. The Flash’s huge canvas is time. I’ve always said when I was redoing both these characters, it’s time and space. Batman’s the ultimate crime vigilante superhero. You will never ever top Batman, and for time travel and crossing all these different planes of reality, you’ll never top the Flash. The Flash owns time.” [USA Today]

Creators | Mike Huddleston chats, not entirely seriously, about Butcher Baker, Righteous Maker, his new Image Comics collaboration with Joe Casey: “Joe and I had both been on the professional arm wrestling circuit for several years and kind of knew each other from competitions. It just happened that we were both sidelined last year with injuries, so being out of competition for a season we had time to kill and started talking about other jobs we could have. I had heard you could get really rich making independent comics, so I convinced Joe to give writing a shot and the rest is history. Joe has had these characters in his head since he was like 6 years old, so I’m not sure how many issues he has planned. We’ll see if he can keep his schedule once he’s back in competition.” [Bloody Disgusting]

One Piece, Vol. 27

Crime | Police in Fukuoka City, Japan, arrested three 17-year-old males on charges of shoplifting the first 57 volumes of One Piece, the insanely popular manga series by Eiichiro Oda. [Anime News Network]

Comics | J. Caleb Mozzocco writes at length about the 2010 Marvel miniseries Doomwar. [Every Day Is Like Wednesday]

Comics | Jeffery Klaehn posts a gallery of Thor art, and posts his list of the Top 10 Thor covers by Jack Kirby and Walter Simonson. [Pop]

From "Neil vs. The Bully," by Evil Wylie

There’s been a lot written over the past couple of days about Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean’s churlish, and childish, criticism of Neil Gaiman for accepting $45,000 from the state’s Legacy Fund to speak a year ago at a library. (Dean called the author a “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota,” but has since apologized, at his mother’s urging, for the name-calling.)

However, my favorite take on the kerfuffle is this webcomic by cartoonist Evil Wylie. Titled “Neil vs. The Bully,” it parodies the old Charles Atlas comic-book ads while also depicting Neil Gaiman and Matt Dean in swim trunks. Check out the full comic at EvilReads.

(via GalleyCat)

Neil Gaiman

Politics | Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean has apologized for calling Neil Gaiman a “pencil-necked little weasel,” but contends the author and comics writer should return the $45,000 fee he received in May 2010 for speaking at the Stillwater, Minn., library (Gaiman donated the money, minus agents fees, to charity). Dean’s original remarks were made during a discussion of how the state’s tax-generated Legacy funds for the arts are spent. He was quoted as saying that Gaiman, “who I hate,” is a “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota.”

Now, however, the Republican lawmaker has dialed back the rhetoric while standing by his underlying criticism. “My mom is staying with us right now,” he tells Minnesota Public Radio. My wife’s out of town, and she was very angry this morning and always taught me to not be a name caller. And I shouldn’t have done it, and I apologize.”

Gaiman, who responded to Dean’s initial comments early Wednesday on Twitter, has since expanded on his remarks on his website, writing in part, “I don’t like the idea that a politician is telling people that charging a market wage for their services is stealing.” [Minnesota Public Radio, Underwire]

Comics | A psychologist has been brought in to a Houston elementary school after a group of fourth-graders created a comic book allegedly depicting them holding a gun to the head of one of their classmates. [My Fox Houston]

Flashpoint #1

Publishing | Brian Truitt previews DC Comics’ upcoming Flashpoint event. “Naturally, everything we’re trying to do is to sell as many comics as possible because that’s the business we’re in,” says Co-Publisher Dan DiDio. “Creatively what it does is it gives us a chance to freshen the pot and think of something. We’re telling continuous fiction, so it’s important for us to continue moving on in that fashion.” [USA Today]

Conventions | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson wraps up last weekend’s Boston Comic Con, which saw attendance increase from 4,100 in 2010 to about 6,000 this year. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | Dan Clowes talks about his latest graphic novel Mr. Wonderful. [Speakeasy]

Creators | Scott Christiansen profiles illustrator Brad Rader, whose graphic novel Fogtown is nominated for a Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Award. [Anchorage Press]

Creators | Laura Lyall spotlights Scott Forbes (Forgetless, 27). [Here]

Creators | The National Post’s literary blog continues its mini-profiles of creators attending this weekend’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival: Dave Kellett, Coffee Spoons Comics, Gabby Schulz, Jordan Shiveley, Meghan Murphy, Niki Smith, Jess Fink and R. Sikoryak. [The Afterword]

Grant Morrison

Los Angeles-based photographer Allan Amato has a unique project coming out meant to bring new attention to Parkinson’s disease. It’s a traveling gallery show and photo book about individuals with the disease, and he’s enlisted some comic book icons to help out.

Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman and Kevin Smith are among a host of notable stars that jumped in to help support Amato’s “Illuminate Parkinsons” campaign to shed new light on the condition. Initially inspired by the photographer’s best friend Becky, this unique project will hit the road in the fall with shows in L.A., Edinburgh and Berlin. To help fund this event, they’ve started a Kickstarter campaign.

Neil Gaiman

Although the national spotlight is no longer on the controversial budget battle in Minnesota, the political climate remains heated.

As evidence, look no further than this Star-Tribune report about efforts by House Republicans to force arts and culture groups like Minnesota Public Radio — no surprise — and the Minnesota Zoo to compete for grants rather than receive special appropriations from the state’s Legacy Fund, which is generated through sales and use tax

Explaining why the state funding for the arts is undergoing scrutiny, House Majority Leader Matt Dean singled out $45,000 in Legacy money paid to author and comics writer Neil Gaiman for a four-hour appearance at a Stillwater public library in May 2010.

Dean is quoted as saying that Gaiman, “who I hate,” was a “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota.”

The author responded to the remarks this morning on Twitter, writing, “Sad & funny. Minnesota Republicans have a ‘hate’ list. Like Nixon did. I’m on it. They also don’t like capitalism. [...] Any nice, sane Minnesota Republicans reading this, please vote for someone who isn’t a bully with a hate list next time.”

It’s certainly not the first time Gaiman’s Stillwater appearance raised eyebrows, but Dean is being awfully personal (to say nothing of hyperbolic).

The author first addressed questions about his fee last May, conceding that he’s, “Not just a bit pricy. Really expensive.”

“The main reason I got a speaking agency, ten years ago, was because too many requests for me to come and speak were coming in,” Gaiman continued. “And the speaking requests were, and are, a distraction from what I ought to be doing, which is writing. So rather than say no, we’ve always priced me high. Not Tony Blair high, or Sarah Palin high (last time I read about them, they’re about $400,000 and $150,000 respectively). But I’m at the top end of what it costs to bring an author who should be home writing and does not really want a second career as a public speaker to your event. So if you want to pay me to come in and talk, it’s expensive.”

He went on to recount that the money was earmarked “to bring authors to suburban libraries who otherwise wouldn’t be able to bring them in,” and that, if unused, could not be carried over the following year. With that in mind, he accepted the engagement then donated his fee (minus agent commissions) to two charities.

(via Blastr)