Comic Book Resources

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]

Continue Reading »

Magneto rounds out new Ultimate Alliance 2 content, which is available now

Magneto

Downloadable content for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 became available in respective stores for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 today, allowing fans of the game to purchase five new playable characters and other content. Joining the previously announced Black Panther, Psylocke, Carnage and Cable is Magneto.

The download pack costs $9.99 on PS3 or 800 Microsoft points on Xbox 360. And don't forget you can now get the Juggernaut for $1.99; he was previously only available if you preordered the game from Gamestop.

Douglas Rushkoff writes X, a graphic novel for new video-game franchise

From "X"

Author, media theorist and sometimes-comics writer Douglas Rushkoff (Testament, Life, Inc.) has penned a graphic novel to promote an as-yet-unnamed video-game franchise from Smoking Gun Interactive.

Illustrated by Cheoljoo Lee and Younger Yang, the comic -- it's simply called X -- is being previewed on this marketing site in installments that roll out over the next four weeks. The full graphic novel will be released next year. More stories are set to follow.

As you might expect from the mysterious title, the story of X involves secrets -- specifically, "the secret history of mankind."

So says the press release: "As a small, scattered group of people stumble onto the truth, they find that they are too late: every great power on earth has already aligned itself against humanity. The war is all but over. Their struggle to discover the truth will lead them into a massive conspiracy that predates humanity itself -- from the world's most ancient sites to the global centers of power."

Halloween Reading | Church and Horn's Gamer Doug

Gamer Doug

Kevin Church and Paul Horn explain why you're better off playing those multiplayer games in the safety of your own home ...

Black Panther leaps into Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

Earlier today I mentioned that the first batch of downloadable content, or DLC, for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 was due in the PS3 and Xbox 360 stores next week, and that two playable characters who would be available had yet to be revealed.

Today Marvel.com posted a video of one of those two characters -- the Black Panther:

The leader of Wakanda joins Carnage, Psylocke and Cable as a part of the DLC due Nov. 5.

New Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 content due Nov. 5

Psylocke, Juggernaut and Carnage

Marvel.com announced yesterday that the first downloadable content for the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 game comes out Nov. 5.

It'll include new simulator missions, boosts and five new playable characters -- Cable, Psylocke, Carnage and two as-yet unannounced additions. The new content will cost $9.99 on the Playstation 3 and 800 Microsoft points on the Xbox 360.

In addition, the previously only-available-via-GameStop-pre-order character, the Juggernaut, will also be released on that day -- he'll cost you 160 Microsoft points on Xbox 360 and $1.99 on the Playstation 3.

Sony unveils art for DC Universe Online's Bizarro

Bizarro

Sony Online has been slowly but surely rolling out artwork and screenshots of the various characters you'll be able to interact with in their upcoming DC Universe Online game for Playstation 3 and the PC. After the jump, check out a few more shots of Bizarro, who, incidentally, was one of the villains I remember fighting against in the demo I played in San Diego back in 2008.

Continue Reading »

Cable part of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2's downloadable content

Joining Psylocke and Carnage as a part of the downloadable content for the video game Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is the mutant known as Cable. Check out artwork and commentary from the game designers over at Marvel.com.

Slash Print | Barnes & Noble's nook goes head-to-head with Amazon's Kindle

Tablets | Kindle, meet the Nook ... or nook, as it looks like Barnes & Noble are spelling it with the lowercase "n," which is really annoying. But yes, the bookseller has launched their own e-book tablet, which retails for $259 (the same as the Amazon Kindle 2), has a color touchscreen and comes out in November. Check out the product comparison chart (it's a PDF) from B & N for more information on how it compares to Amazon's device.

Google, meanwhile, isn't working on a device, but they do plan to launch an e-book store in order to deliver electronic books to "any device with a web browser." Time will tell what any of this means for the comic industry, but with a color tablet coming out soon, you can see the possibilities.

Webcomics | Writing for PBS's Mediashift blog, Simon Owens writes about what newspaper cartoonists can learn from web cartoonists. He spoke with both Richard Stevens and Howard Tayler for the piece.

Continue Reading »

Psylocke, Carnage to be downloadable options for Ultimate Alliance 2

As is expected nowadays with just about any console game that comes out, Activision will release downloadable content, or DLC, for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. No release date has been announced, but they have released info on two characters you'll be able to add to the game. Earlier this month they announced Carnage, and this week they've added Psylocke to the roster.

Check out some more shots and a video of Psylocke after the jump.

Continue Reading »

Straight for the art: Monster Brains' arcade art galleries

Very, very hot back then.

Centipedes were hot back then.

Want a trip down memory lane that won't even cost you a quarter? There may not be a deluxe line of hardcover reprints dedicated to the visionaries whose fervid fantasies festooned the arcades of your youth, but chances are these anonymous artists shaped your appreciation of cartooning nearly as much as the stars of any given DC Archive or Marvel Masterwork. Enter Monster Brains, one of the Internet's great repositories of weird and wild art and illustration, curated by Aeron Alfrey (himself no slouch when it comes to macabre art). Over the past two weeks, Monster Brains has played host to a daily avalanche of arcade art from video games and pinball machines. It's a veritable nostalgia button-masher, to be sure (Millipede! R-Type! Karnov!), but it's also an inspiring look at an area of cartooning with seemingly no rules, where the goal was simply to stand out even among a sea of similarly lurid-looking games. Mission accomplished!

If an event comic came out looking like this, I'd by three copies of each issue

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

Yaoi Press

Legal | Yaoi Press Publisher Yamila Abraham was arrested Monday in Las Vegas on federal fraud charges related to online sales of an "herbal" alternative to recreational street drugs. Authorities claim the product contained no herbal supplements and was actually composed of dextromethorphan hydrobromide (DXM), the active ingredient in over-the-counter cough suppressants. The charges date from 2005 and 2006, when Abraham operated the mail-order website Pleasureherbs.com.

If convicted, Abraham, 34, could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the seven counts of mail fraud, up to one year in prison and a $250,000 fine on one count of misbranding a drug, and up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine on one count of introducing goods in domestic commerce by means of false statement. She also could be forced to forfeit property from the proceeds of the crime up to $186,680 and any equipment used to make the drugs.

On the Yaoi Press blog, Abraham asked for everyone to "please keep a cool head, and have faith. This situation is not going to end Yaoi Press. Don't believe the hype." She stressed that she will continue to appear at conventions, including this weekend's OtakuMex in Albuquerque, New Mexico. [Las Vegas Sun]

Continue Reading »

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

D23 Expo

Business | During a surprise appearance Thursday at the D23 Expo, Walt Disney Company President and CEO Bob Iger assured reporters that, "There will be no Disney-fication of Marvel."

"When you look at it as part of the Walt Disney Company and the application, the presence of Marvel is virtually in everything that we’re in," Iger said at the presentation. "You can expect that, over time, that’s what you will see. We became impressed with the talent of Marvel as we got to know them better. Once the the deal closes their is expected integration, but we plan to keep Marvel as an entity and and to respect both the talent that is there, working as one and also respect what Marvel is and what the essence of Marvel is. There will be no Disney-fication of Marvel." [ScreenCrave]

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Business | I overlooked this nugget when I was assembling our overview of the new DC Entertainment: Batman: Arkham Asylum, the new video game from Warner Bros. Interactive and Eidos Interactive, has sold a reported 2 million copies since its release on Aug. 25. [Los Angeles Times]

Conventions | Deb Aoki has commentary on Thursday's confirmation that Reed Exhibitions will "co-locate" next year's New York Comic Con and New York Anime Festival. That means the two events will be held at the same time -- Oct. 8-10, 2010 -- and share exhibition space in the Javits Center while maintaining separate programming and guest lists. "With a tight economy to contend with," Aoki writes, "Reed Exhibitions has likely figured out that combining New York Anime Festival with New York Comic-Con might make it more appealing for more publishers, game and anime companies to put some of their marketing budget toward exhibiting at next year's shows." [About.com]

Continue Reading »

DC Entertainment: What we know so far

DC Comics

Now that some of the dust has settled on yesterday's big Warner Bros. announcement -- press releases have been issued, top executives have been interviewed -- we can at least begin to get a picture of the new DC Entertainment.

Here's what we can piece together so far:

• DC Entertainment is essentially a new company under the Warner Bros. Entertainment umbrella designed to more effectively and aggressively make use of  -- or "exploit," if you will -- the DC Comics characters in television, movies and other media. That's long been viewed as a weak point in the DC-Warner Bros. relationship.

• This new company will be headed by Diane Nelson, who's been president of Warner Premiere since the direct-to-DVD division of Warner Home Video was established in August 2006. A graduate of Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Communications, Nelson was director of national promotions for Walt Disney Records before joining Warner Bros. in 1996. She's perhaps best known for supervising the management of the lucrative Harry Potter movie franchise since 1999.

In addition to her duties as president of DC Entertainment, Nelson will continue to oversee Warner Premiere and the studio's interests in Harry Potter. She'll report to Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Bros. Picture Group. (As president and publisher of DC Comics, Paul Levitz reported to Alan Horn, president and COO of Warner Bros. Entertainment.)

Continue Reading »

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

Disney Interactive Studios

Business | Disney has followed its announced $4-billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment with the hiring of Bungie Software founder, and Halo co-creator, Alex Seropian as the head of creative for its video-game division. As part of the deal, Disney Interactive Studios acquired Chicago-based Wideload Games, the studio Seropian founded in 2003 after leaving Bungie. [CNBC.com]

Business | Not only will Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter become $4.3 million richer on the day the Disney merger closes, he'll become Disney's second-largest stockholder behind Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. [Orlando Sentinel]

Comic strips | Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World has returned to the Village Voice after a seven-month absence. Parent company Village Voice Media announced in late January it had suspended publication of syndicated comics in its 15 newspapers as part of company-wide cost-cutting measures. [This Modern World, via The Daily Cartoonist]

Continue Reading »