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Incarnate #1

Publishing | Following widespread accusations that Incarnate creator Nick Simmons plagiarized Bleach and other manga titles, bloggers Deb Aoki (on Twitter), Rob Bricken, Christopher Butcher, Johanna Draper Carlson and Simon Jones weigh in with commentary on plagiarism, scanlations/piracy and fan art. Butcher has some particularly pointed words for "the legions of artist-alley dwellers selling mass-produced copies of their fanart," while in the comments of Comics Worth Reading, Jones neatly ties together the discussion by pointing out that some of the Bleach art that Simmons is alleged to have copied comes from volumes not yet released in North America. [Robot 6]

Comics | John Jackson Miller provides perspective on Thursday's record-setting sale of a copy of Detective Comics #27. [The Comichron]

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Warner Bros. announces Batman: The Brave and the Bold video game

Batman: The Brave and the Bold the Videogame

On the heels of this morning's announcement of Warner Bros.' majority acquisition of Rocksteady Studios comes word of a new Batman video game for kids and families.

Based on the animated television series, Batman: The Brave and the Bold the Videogame is being developed by WayForward Technologies for release this fall on Nintendo DS and the Wii.

According to a statement from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, the game "fully immerses fans into the animated world" of the TV series, and allows players to control such characters as Batman, Robin, The Flash, Green Lantern, Blue Beetle and Aquaman. Linking the DS and Wii will unlock Bat-Mite.

Warner Bros. buys majority stake in Arkham Asylum game developer

From "Batman: Arkham Asylum"

Warner Bros. announced today it has bought a controlling stake in Rocksteady Studios, London-based developer of the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game.

Although specific financial terms weren't released, the deal gives Warner Bros. 68.4-percent interest in the six-year-old Rocksteady.

“The biggest gap this fills is that it locks in development talent on one of our most valuable pieces of intellectual property for games: Batman,” Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros. Entertainment Group, told the Financial Times.

This is only the latest recent video-game acquisition by the entertainment giant, which in 2007 purchased LEGO franchise developer TT Games, and last year bought Snowblind Studios and the assets of the bankrupt Midway Games.

Debuting in August 2009, Batman: Arkham Asylum sold a reported 2 million copies in its first three weeks of release. To date, more than 3 million units have shipped worldwide. A sequel was announced in December.

Some thoughts on DC's new 'executive management team' [Updated]

The new Warner Bros. mural (photo by Jonah Weiland)

Like virtually every other comics blogger and fan, I've been mulling over DC Entertainment's big announcement this morning of an executive management team to replace President and Publisher Paul Levitz.

As you can read at Comic Book Resources, the new team is: Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, co-publishers of DC Comics; Geoff Johns, chief creative officer of DC Entertainment; John Rood, executive vice president-sales, marketing and business development; and Patrick Caldon, executive vice president-finance and administration.

First, congratulations to all five. And now, some thoughts:

• Nobody won the DC Publisher Betting Pool -- although, as Sean Collins points out, Variety alum Tom McLean, with his much-derided list of candidates, certainly came closest. Still, in all of the prognostication that's gone on since September, when Diane Nelson was named as president of a newly formed DC Entertainment, no one predicted that the departing Levitz would be replaced by a five-person "executive management team."

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The real question is who would win in a fight between Hulk and Sperminator?

Marvel Super Hero Squad and Middlesex-London Sex Squad: Adventures in ... Sex City

No, you're not seeing double. The image on the left is the cover of an all-ages action-adventure video game featuring super-deformed versions of Marvel superheroes. The image on the right is the illustration for an online game developed by a London, Ontario, public-health unit to teach teens about safe sex.

If you get confused, just remember: Marvel Super Hero Squad features a cuddly version of the Incredible Hulk, a green-skinned Mr. Hyde to Bruce Banner's Dr. Jekyll, while Middlesex-London Sex Squad: Adventures in ... Sex City features Sperminator, an enormous luchador. An enormous luchador ... with penises for arms. (That's right. Now you know why I put a black bar over part of the image.)

One has Spider-Man, Iron Man, Storm and Captain America, the other has Willy the Kid, Power Pap, Wonder Vag and Captain Condom. It seems pretty evenly matched to me.

In the interactive game -- we're talking Adventures in ... Sex City -- teens are asked 25 questions related to sex: "Answering the questions correctly allows the superhero to conquer the evil Sperminator. However, if they answer a question incorrectly, they get shot with sperm by the Sperminator."

Thankfully, players are protected by "a condom shield" if they answer correctly, allowing "the superhero to discharge the sperm back to the Sperminator."

I swear, I'm not making this up! You can play the game for yourself here.

There's no word yet as to whether Paul Tobin will be writing the comic-book adaptation. Stay tuned.

Download Mass Effect: Redemption #1 from Dark Horse for free all day

Mass Effect #1

Dark Horse released the first issue of their four-issue Mass Effect: Redemption comic book on iTunes today. The story occurs between the first Mass Effect game and the second one, which came out last month.

And if you download it today, it's absolutely free. So if you're interested in checking it out, act quickly -- this link will take you directly to iTunes.

I myself have not played Mass Effect, as I don't have an Xbox 360, but I have been very addicted to another BioWare-created game, Dragon Age, on the Playstation 3. If it's half as much fun shooting up aliens in Mass Effect as it is fighting Darkspawn in DA, then it's probably worth checking out as well.

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

Diamond Gem Awards

Awards | DC Comics, BOOM! Studios and Viz Media were named publishers of the year in their respective categories in Diamond Comic Distributors' annual Gem Awards. DC received 10 awards in all, including those for backlist publisher, comic book under $3 (Batman and Robin #1), comic book over $3 (Blackest Night #1) and reprint (Watchmen). Marvel, curiously, is absent from the list.

The awards are selected based on quality, creativity and overall sales impact. Nominees are made by "a panel of Diamond industry professionals," and voted on by direct-market retailers. [Diamond News]

Retailing | The financially troubled Borders Group has laid off 124 corporate -- about 10 percent of its corporate staff -- plus 40 workers in two warehouses in Nashville, Tennessee, and Mira Loma, California. Eighty-eight of the corporate positions came from the bookstore chain's Ann Arbor, Michigan, headquarters. [Media Decoder]

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Straight for the art | It's on like Donkey Kong

by Anthony Vukojevich

Here's another fun one from the Covered blog ... Anthony Vukojevich reimagines the cover to Fantastic Four #26 as a game of Donkey Kong, with the Hulk as the misunderstood ape, Rick Jones as the princess in need of saving and the rest of the heroes climbing ladders and jumping over flaming barrels trying to avoid waves of flying steel girders. Brilliant!

DC to launch weekly series set in world of DC Universe Online

From "DC Universe Online"

On the heels of announcing two new biweekly miniseries, DC Comics has unveiled plans for a weekly title set in the world of DC Universe Online, the highly anticipated massively multiplayer game from Sony Online Entertainment.

DC Universe: Legends, which will debut later this year, is an attempt by the publisher and SOE to bridge the comic-book and gaming audiences. But just how will they go about doing that?

"First, we're going to set up the conceit of the universe, how it works and what the rules are," DC Comics Executive Editor Dan DiDio tells IGN.com. "We'll also be trying to work gaming tips and secrets into the body of the book as we move along in the series. You'll see a lot of support material including turnarounds and designs that went into the actual building of the game.

"What I think is the most exciting thing is that, if everything is working as well as we hope once we get down the line, characters that players create actually have an opportunity to work their way from the game into the comics themselves."

DiDio also announced that Tony Bedard and Dan Jurgens will write Legends. Other creators will be named later.

Breaking down the Arkham Asylum 2 trailer

I pulled Batman: Arkham Asylum out again a couple of weeks ago, so I could play through it one more time and focus more on solving all of the Riddler's riddles that are sprinkled throughout the game. The first time I played through it, I didn't pay as much attention to them, as my only concern was saving Gotham from the Joker, but the second time through was a bit more leisurely and fun. If you haven't played the game (and you should -- it's my favorite game of the year), the riddles revolve around various Bat-related characters who aren't in the game ... the riddles send you looking for Mr. Freeze's ice-coated cell, Hugo Strange's transfer papers and Penguin's umbrella, for example.

With all these references to other Bat-villains in the game, it's no surprise that a few Easter eggs found their way into the Arkham Asylum 2 trailer that came out earlier this month. Gametrailers.com's Pop Block, which is kind of like VH1's Pop Up Videos show, points out some of these references in the trailer below. Keep an eye out for the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge, a Sionus sign and a suspicious-looking black cat ...

Wildstorm cancels Warcraft, Starcraft comics to make way for OGNs

IGN reports that Wildstorm is canceling its ongoing World of Warcraft and Starcraft comic series, and will replace them with a series of original graphic novels.

Both comics are based on the Blizzard Entertainment video games (and MMORG, in the case of Warcraft) of the same name. The announcement comes at an interesting time, as next month was supposed to see a name change for the Warcraft title to World of Warcraft: Alliance and the launch of a second title called World of Warcraft: Horde. Today's World of Warcraft Special will be the last Warcraft comic, while January's Starcraft #7 will be its last.

"While WildStorm and Blizzard loved the stories being told in the regular monthly comic-book series, we decided that the graphic novel would be a more suitable medium for the tales we wanted to tell next," Hank Kanalz, vice president and general manager of Wildstorm, told the site. "The larger format will give our artists and storytellers more room to explore Blizzard's rich, varied worlds and flesh out the characters that inhabit these places."

No details on format or timing for the OGNs have been announced yet.

Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 trailer

As mentioned on CBR, here's the trailer for the sequel to this year's best game, Batman Arkham Asylum:

The game's website has also gone live.

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

One Piece, Vol. 54

Publishing | It's probably little surprise that Eiichiro Oda's adventure-comedy One Piece was the bestselling series in Japan 2009, moving a whopping 14.7 million copies. It's followed in the Top 5 by Naruto, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist and Gintama. [Anime News Network]

Webcomics | Child's Play, the game-industry charity founded in 2003 by Penny Arcade creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, has raised more than $1 million since launching this year's drive on Nov. 6. "This is Child's Play's seventh year, and this is the fastest we have ever gotten to the million dollar mark," Krahulik wrote on the website. "Considering everything that's going on, that's just astounding." [Penny Arcade]

Awards | Makoto Yukimura's historical-action series Vinland Saga has been announced as the grand-prize winner in the manga category at the 13th Japanese Media Arts Festival, which isn't actually held until February. Yukimura, best known in the United States for his science-fiction drama Planetes, debuted the 11th-century Viking epic in 2005. Vinland Saga hasn't been licensed in North America. [Anime Vice]

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Run, Archie, run: Upcoming video game puts you in Riverdale

A tip of the fedora to Caleb Goellner at Comics Alliance, who points out that there's a trailer for the Archie game being created by FXLabs and announced back in 2008:

"I admittedly have an irrational fondness for Archie and his pals, but I'm not 100 percent certain kids will flock to a game where one of the highlights is mowing dad's lawn," Goellner writes.

Shoot alpaca with a shotgun in Roman Dirge's upcoming iPhone game

Vampire Puff Puff

Destructoid reports that Roman Dirge is working on a new iPhone game called Vampire Puff Puff. The game stars Ragamuffin from his Lenore comics fighting the undead in an attempt to save Lenore. You can see additional screen shots by clicking on the above link.