"Bat-juice? Bat-coffee? Bat-milk?"
ITEM! Who could have done such a thing?
from Super Power Collection: Firestorm (1984)
ITEM! Pal Nat, proprietor of About Comics, dropped by the shop the other day to show me an advance copy of his forthcoming book Schulz’s Youth. Contained therein are several single panel cartoons dating from the ’50s, which feature, as it says at the link, “the teen view of dating, religion, clubs, parents, sports, and more.” Looks great, and will make a welcome companion to your Peanuts collection.
ITEM! Jake at Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge has a great collection of sketches from the Phoenix Comicon, including a character drawn by George Perez that Perez himself admits he’d never drawn before! Which character could it possibly be? Well, click the link and find out your own self.
ITEM! Speaking of the Phoenix Comicon, Greg at Comics Should Be Good has a round-up, noting a tie-in interview with Swamp Thing co-creator Len Wein.
Also…and I know I noted this before…it amuses me the level of renown and/or infamy regarding my Swamp Thing fandom, given the number of mentions folks make of me in connection to the character (as Greg did in the CSBG article).
ITEM! So that weird promo image DC unleashed last week:
(click for a link to a larger image)
…I agree with pal Dorian’s assessment (that it’s an amalgamation of recent and future events, rather than a specific forthcoming company-wide event). But I do want to note that I’m glad to see Pirate Batman from this Detective Comics Elseworlds annual popping up. That was one of my favorite Batman comics of recent memory, primarily due to the artwork of Alcatena. I am curious as to what DC is planning on doing with Pirate Batman…hopefully something good, but you never know. We’ll see.
And, okay, fine, he’s called “Leatherwing,” but c’mon, “Pirate Batman” just sounds cooler. You know it’s true.
OBJECT! “Louis Riel to be subject of graphic novel”
“A Metis organization plans to present the controversial history of Louis Riel in a colour comic that is every bit as colourful as Riel’s personality.
“The 50-page, hard-cover graphic novel is to be published in both official languages. The proposal includes an interactive DVD, a teacher’s guide and student workbook, and an interactive, animated website.”
[…]
“‘This research can hardly be considered work. It’s so fascinating. To synthesize all the information into comic form will be very challenging, because the story is quite complicated.'”
…as anyone who’s read Chester Brown’s Louis Riel already knows. It would be interesting to see another funnybook take on Riel’s life, though, just to see where they agree and where they differ.
THING! Michael Chiklis talks about his role as “The Thing” in the forthcoming second and the potential third Fantastic Four movies in this IGN interview. My favorite exchange:
“IGN: What’s Ben’s role in the second movie?
Chiklis: He does heroic s**t.”
ITEM! So I was doing a little internet searching, and came across several links to a review of Blood and Chocolate (such as this one), which relates this exchange between two of the lead characters:
“Maybe she’s impressed by what Aiden does for a living. ‘I write graphic novels.’ ‘You mean comic books.’ ‘Noooo. Graphic novels.'”
Are people really uptight about this? I’ve never noticed in among my customers or my circle of comic-reading friends a tendency toward correcting folks who dare to call graphic novels “comic books,” but I’ve seen or heard this sort of thing referenced in the media before. It’s like the new shorthand for establishing someone is a geek…”oh, isn’t it cute how he refers to his comic books as ‘graphic novels,’ like they’re real books or something.”
I don’t know…I call ’em “funnybooks,” because I’m a bad person.
TURKEY! Via pal JP, it’s Turkish Batman:
It takes a minute or so for Batman and Robin to show up.
If you require something a little more colorful, here’s a trailer of sorts for my favorite completely-unauthorized Bat-film Alyas Batman en Robin: