Wizard and the solicitations broke the story on COUNTDOWN Monday, with Newsarama adding more to the mix yesterday. We didn’t have time to blog the big news, but in case you missed it: yes, DC is launching another line-spanning weekly comic, one with Paul Dini as head writer.

What’s interesting about it, from our standpoint, is that the vast man (and woman) power required to keep a weekly comic on track is economically viable in the direct market. Also, mastermind Dan Didio has finally come full circle and brought the TV process to bear on comics. (Lest we forget, before he came to DC, Didio’s background was in producing TV toons like Reboot.) It’s not enough that TV writers were (for a while) the hot commodities in comics, now the entire TV writing process has its year-long moment in the sun. We’ll turn to Wizard’s interview with “showrunner” Dini for pullquotes:

What’s your role in the whole process?

DINI: Sort of an executive story editor and head writer. What we’re doing is something not unlike the way a lot of television shows are written, where there will be one head writer who is charting the direction of the series with a writer team handling the creation of the episodes. I am writing a couple of scripts. My job is more working with the other writers to do the weekly books, and then coming in once the script is completed to make sure that the voices of the characters are the same, that the storyline is working and that we’re all on the same page. I brought a lot of myself to that main story, and now I’m imparting that to the other writers. They’re bringing their own takes and their own creativity and their own imagination to work on the characters, and I’m trying to make sure that it all fits together. I’m sure if I looked at the whole thing I would scream, but day-to-day it’s a lot of fun.

We were a little sad that innocent little Mary Marvel will now be getting the grim’n'gritty treatment, but such is the fate of innocence in a grim’n'gritty world:

A character trying to find her way in a larger universe is Mary Marvel. We start with her at kind of a low point in her life, where she has to evaluate what it is she’s been doing as a superheroine and where she’s going. And a lot of her story is kind of a battle for her destiny. This is very much Mary’s trial by fire.

And of course, after COUNTDOWN…NOTHING will be the same!

[T]here’s a lot of fun character work in it also, and there are moments of triumph and tragedy throughout. So, yeah, this is a story with a lot of action, a lot of change, and a lot of repercussions for the overall DC Universe. In fact, when we get toward the end, you’ll see some truly world-shaking changes that will start in Countdown and then sweep through all the other books and will really change the face of DC for a long time to come.

NOTHING! Do you hear us? NOTHING!!!

Getting back to the whole TV thing for a moment, we were gabbing with one of our comics industry pals a few weeks ago and a pretty good case can be made that substituting typical TV writers for typical comics writers hasn’t really pushed the medium forward that much and in fact, the trend seems to have died down a bit. We always hear good things about Allen Heinberg’s writing, but the Wonder Woman fiasco may have put the nail in the coffin for trying to wrangle people with six figure incomes into towing the line for a comics type page rate.

At any rate, COUNTDOWN is in extremely good hands with Dini–who has always juggled the various needs of tv, film and comics admirably–at the helm, and a stable of fine writers. Will it have more civilian appeal than 52? We shall see.

CIVIL WAR wrapped up this week, and of course we haven’t had time to go find a copy, online or in a store, but we haven’t had time to read ANY issues of CIVIL WAR yet. We’re “waiting for the trade”, as they say on the inside. or people who like a denoument, Mark Millar is sounding off in the “The OFFICIAL MCW Ish 7 THREAD” at Millarworld. Everyone seems a bit baffled by the ending, which, as near as we can make out involves Cap realizing he was wrong, and Iron Man winning, and the Punisher looking longingly at Cap’s gear. Which actually, given the way things are going in the real world, is what passes for “relevance” in comics today. What we don’t quite get is how this is going to change the Marvel U forever. Can someone explain THAT to us?

Do you want to know where ELSE the cool kids will be? They will be at GIANT ROBOT!

GIANT ROBOT NY and FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS PRESENT:

BEASTS! With artists signing the new hardcover collection of nearly 100 illustrators depicting mythological and folkloric creatures.

WHAT: BEASTS! book release signing
WHO: Jesse LeDoux, Katy Horan, Keith Shore, R. Kikuo Johnson, Sam Weber, Scott Teplin, Andy Kehoe and others t.b.a.

WHEN: Saturday, Feb. 24th, 7pm
WHERE: Giant Robot NY, 437 E. Ninth St., New York, NY 10009
WEB ADDRESS: http://www.grny.net/
PHONE: 212.674.GRNY

Beasts! is a 200 page, full-color (plus Gold throughout), hardcover book from Fantagraphics Books. Ninety artists from the fields of rock posters, skate graphics, comics, children’s books, fine art, etc. have each chosen a classic mythological or folkloric creature to illustrate. All of the depicted beasts have been thought at some time to exist (generally through a handful of eyewitnesses or as cultural stories). Each beast is accompanied by a brief description of the creature written by Paul Hughes, Felicia Gotthelf, Heidi Broadhead, or Rob Lightner. It was birthed/curated by Jacob Covey and marvelously edited by Karin Snelson.

Do you want to know where the cool kids will be? This is it. Alex Cox explains in his own way:

In these cold and troubled winter months, the cruel North wind oft brings a chilling despair, settling deep in your hearts and bones. There is but one remedy for the cruel, icy darkness…

Comic Books.

So do join us at ROCKETSHIP, as we celebrate the release of several new funnybooks from Picturebox Press: COLD HEAT #3, by BJ and Frank Santoro, PIG TALES/CARTOON WORKSHOP by Paper Rad, and 1-800-MICE by Matthew Thurber.

The artists themselves will be on hand, to sign books, and escape with you from the impending horrors of the angry frost demon named Feb-ruary.

I know many of you will be spending your days at Ye Olde Javitz Centre, digging fitfully through long, white boxes in search of that one, last MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE that completes your collection. I promise that this ROCETSHIP event will be a welcome respite from your toils, as you unwind with a beverage provided by Six Point Craft Ales, and listen to the melodies of Special Musical Guests… SOILED MATTRESS AND THE SPRINGS!

That’s right, friends, not only will Matthew Thurber be signing comic books, he will also be performing with his three-piece Musical Combo.

So join us at ROCKETSHIP! Saturday night (2-24) at 8 pm.

The Sound of Young America interviews VENTURE BROTHERS creator Jackson Publick for this podcast. (Thanks to Ian Brill for the link.)

Speaking of The Venture Bros, this weekend on Saturday at 4:30 at the NYCC (that AGAIN?) there will be a Venture Bros. spotlight with Jackson Publick, Doc Hammer, James Urbaniak (Rusty Venture, etc.), Michael Sinterniklaas (Dean Venture), and Steven Rattazzi (Dr. Orpheus). Although the ladies and Brock will be missing, this should be the greatest collection of Venture voices yet assembled at a convention and we admit to having had a teeny tiny bit to do with getting it put together, and anticipate that it will have moments of drollery.

Speaking of podcasts, DC has done something certified cool and put up a podcast of Rick Vetch reading the words from his stream-on-consciousness graphic novel CAN’T GET NO. Download and read along!

Not content to satirize 70s movie posters, the John Green-Dave Roman-Raina Telgemeier-Marion Vitus comics comglomerate has announced they will henceforth be known as Comics Bakery.

Wizard has hired former FHM EIC Scott Gramling to take over as EIC of the entire Wizard Magazine empire. Hiring a former lad mag guy to take over is a pretty smart guy, and our magazine industry peeps all have good things to say about Gramling (who once worked at Wizard) so…this could be very interesting. PR via the Wizard website.

Wizard Entertainment announced today Scott Gramling as the new Editor-In-Chief of Wizard. Gramling will take the helm effective immediately overseeing all content for the company, including the four publications; Wizard, InQuest Gamer, ToyFare and Anime Insider as well as wizarduniverse.com and The Wizard World Tour, which kicks off March 16 in Los Angeles.

In making the announcement Wizard Entertainment President and COO Fred Pierce said, “We are thrilled that Scott is returning to the Wizard family and extremely confident he is the right person for the job. His experience, knowledge and expertise make him an invaluable asset as we continue to build the circulation and awareness of the Wizard brand.”

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Well, this is disgusting. Basically, a “promoter” set up an anime con, promising the extra profits would go to breast cancer research, and the whole thing was a scam. The “promoter” cancelled the event and made off with all the money.

AnimeFF and its breast cancer awareness turned out to be a scam of ridiculous magnitude, affecting so many parties in the anime industry, including the integrity of the anime fans. Active Anime’s friend Adam of TheOtaku.com, who took his time from his busy schedule to promote AnimeFF’s “Tour For the Cure” convention experience this issue first hand as he was a guess at the convention that was held last January 13 – 14. TheOtaku.com, is putting pressure on AnimeFF’s parent company Duplicate Mass Industries as it is only posting documents and events that happened at the convention, and starting with the only AnimeFF representative Jeffery Borncamp. According to one of the posting, Jeffery Borncamp left the convention with the cash box and was never heard from it again. Duplicate Mass Industries is based in Columbus, Ohio. If you have any information on AnimeFF or Duplicated Mass Industries, please contact Adam at adam@theotaku.com, and visit TheOtaku.com for more inforamtion and to read the events that transpired at AnimeFF.

Manganews has more:

AnimeFF was founded with the purpose of leveraging the goodwill of the fandom community to generate money for breast cancer research, specifically the Susan G. Komen Foundation. With this in mind they launched the anime “Tour for the Cure” convention, with the idea that the entire proceeds of the convention be donated.

Needing help to get the convention started and help to have it promoted, they turned to a variety of people in the anime community, including Richard Stott, founder of the well-respected Anime Vegas convention, and the team over at theOtaku.com, who helped in a number of ways, including running an anime art contest. The winners of the contest were promised a number of gaming systems, donated to the con because AnimeFF’s parent organization, DMI (Duplicate Mass Industries) has ties to the gaming industry. MTV was even set to come out and video tape the cosplay parade.

Instead, the worst things that could ever happen in an anime con happened: Contracts for the convention rooms were not signed. The three day con was suddenly cut to a one day con. Event after event was canceled. Accommodations promised to the various con guest were never made available. Finally, AnimeFF representative Jeff Borncamp told the convention center people that the con was over with, while he ran off with all the registration money and dealer deposits.

More information.

Tokyopop is set up at booth #731 with creators including Eric Wight, Rivkah, Svetlana Chmakova, T Campbell, Amy Mebberson, Joanna Estep, Melissa DeJesus, M. Alice LeGrow, Federica Manfredi, Shannon Denton, Dan Hipp, June Kim, Frank Marraffino, Stuart Moore, James Barry, Joshua Ortega, Drew Rausch, Amy Hadley, Megumi Cummings, Steven Cummings, Jamar Nicholas, Rob Steen, and Armand Villavert. They’ll be having panels right at their booth, and signings. Schedule in the jump.
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Image Comics has scheduled a fine crew of comics creators during the New York Comicon, February 23-25, 2007. Featuring industry heavyweights like Kyle Baker, Brian Haberlin and Mike Oeming, as well as hot new creators like Rick Spears and Jonathan Hickman. Listed below are the times you can show up to get your books signed and talk with some of the best in the business!

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Signings by folks like Bob Fingerman, Tara McPherson, Arvid Nelson and more highlight Dark Horse’s booth schedule. Times and details in the jump.

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Where will you find Naruto, the nation’s #1 comic, at NYCC? Why at Viz!

VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, announced a bevy of activities, events and new anime and manga offerings for all the hot properties fans are excited about at the 2007 New York Comic-Con show.

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In addition to showing off their manga line, Del Rey is bringing a bunch of prose authors to the show including,
* China Miéville (Un Lun Dun)
* Timothy Zahn (Star Wars: Allegiance)
* Drew Bowling (Tower of Shadows)
* Joe Schreiber (Chasing the Dead)
* Charlie Huston (No Dominion) and
* Tom De Haven (It’s Superman!)

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Markosia is coming to New York with a giant monkey!

This weekend in New York, the second annual New York Comic Con will be occurring - and Markosia will be right there in the middle!

As well as creator signings, artist sketches, portfolio reviews and comic sales, Markosia will also be hosting the LIVE CONTRACT SIGNING for the comic adaptation and ongoing series of KONG: KING OF SKULL ISLAND, the bestselling book by critically acclaimed creator and illustrator Joe DeVito.

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The danger is still real.

Here are your comic events for the week!

Thursday, February 22nd

New York, NY at 8 PM Carousel at Dixon Place
An evening of cartoon slide shows and other projections, hosted by R. Sikoryak. The presentation features Gabrielle Bell, Dale Goodson, Patrick Hambrecht, John Mathias, Tim Kreider, Karen Sneider, and Jim Torok. Doors open at 7:30. Tickets are $12; $10 student/senior. Dixon Place is located on 258 Bowery, 2nd floor (b/w Houston and
Prince).

Attendees of the Second Annual New York Comic Convention are invited to attend the Second Annual Indie After Party on Saturday February 24th from 8-11 PM at The Twins Pub in New York City. Last year the party took place on the upstairs level of the bar. This year we have the entire venue and will feature free food, cash bar, a gallery of comic book art, and comics for sale.

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All guests of the 2nd Annual New York Comic Con are invited to the PopCultureShock / Illusion TV after party on Saturday Feb. 24^th at New York’s “Slate Plus” from 10pm – 4am.

PCS and Illusion are throwing the premiere after party event of the NY Comic Con with exclusive trailers and preview issues from Marvel Comics, TokyoPop, EA Games, X-Box 360’s Crack Down and Illusion TV… not to mention an all new premiere trailer from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s double-feature “Grind House”.

Hundreds of guests will walk away with a limited edition flash-drive from Illusion and Marvel Comics containing a NY Comic Con premiere trailer for an upcoming Marvel event that no fan will want to miss! With Illusion TV’s “Fan Girls” and Virgin MegaStore in on the action, the PopCultureShock party for ’07 is bigger and better than ever.

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§ Will Marvel have to move office again? According to this piece in the New York Observer, their office building has just been purchased by a new buyer who could be well advised to raise the well-below-market rents.

417 Fifth Avenue is an 11-story, 392,000- square-foot building at the corner of 38th Street and across the street from the Lord & Taylor. It’s a building that was constructed in 1912, and includes Atari and Marvel Entertainment as its main tenants.

The building also has 80,000 square feet of air rights available, which was included in the deal, a source said.

One of the first things that Mr. Moinian may want to do is push up rents, since they’re far below market now. The asking rent for the only available floor is $32 per square foot, according to CoStar (whereas average rents for class-B midtown south buildings are $40 per square foot, according to Cushman & Wakefield).

§ The American Psychological Association warns that suggestive toys and cartoons are creating an aura of early sexualization for girls which could be very psychologically damaging. Even Disney could be to blame!

The APA report also looked at toys, music and other media, such as films and magazines. One particular target was the Bratz dolls - which outsell Barbie in the UK - who wear raunchy gear such as hot pants, fishnet stockings and feather boas. Even the Disney Corporation, which promotes family values, was criticised. The study singled out cartoons including The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas for featuring characters “which have more cleavage, fewer clothes, and are depicted as ’sexier’ than those of yesteryear”. Eileen Zurbriggen, one of the APA report’s main authors, said: “The consequences of the sexualisation of girls in media today are very real and are likely to be a negative influence on girls’ healthy development.

§ SHOCKER: GERRY FEARED HE WAS FAT! :

§ Audrey Niffenegger, an UNUSUAL graphic novelist, is profiled:

One day, she was scraping together a living as a Chicago artist. The next, she had Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and “The Today Show” knocking at her door. For Audrey Niffenegger, the author of the best-selling “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” the past four years have been as surreal as the plots of her books.

§ An exhibit of art by Osamu Tezuka has opened in Sydney, Australia:

Tezuka: the Marvel of Manga
23 February to 29 April 2007
Art Gallery of New South Wales

2 June to 9 September 2007
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

We often get on our old pal Craig Yoe because his brilliant, brilliant blog Arflovers does not have permalinks or an RSS feed. If it did, we would steal things like the above on a weekly basis. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go there often and check out the naked ladies, old superheroes and other wonders of the world.

As you may have heard, MySpace has launched a comic book…area, I guess you could call it. Friend up, Cowboy! MySpace is also sponsoring the New York Comic-con, and we’ll have to leave you to write the punchline for THAT one, since we take money from both Reed and NewsCorp.

MySpace.com, the leading social networking and lifestyle portal, which recently announced the launch of the MySpace Comic Books profile (www.myspace.com/comicbooks) will take an active role in promoting its new community at New York Comic Con (NYCC). The new profile will be the official community for manga, graphic novels and comic books on MySpace.

MySpace will be one of the official media sponsors of NYCC which takes place at the Jacob K. Javits Center, February 23 – 25. MySpace events include:

* Friends can meet face-to-face at the “The Official MySpace Meet Up Point.” MySpacers can meet offline at Fox Atomic booth #553. This area will contain computer stations for users to check their MySpace profile, enter the “The Hills Have Eyes 2” / 15 Gigs of Fear music video mash-up contest, as well as meet talent including Wes Craven, Steve Niles, Jimmy Palmiotti, and more.

* MYSPACE MYSTERY PANEL. This panel will feature three mystery guests – all top creators in the world of comics– to be announced on the day of the panel. The www.myspace.com/comicbooks and www.myspace.com/nycomiccon profiles will reveal clues on the identity of the mystery panelists leading up to the event.

* MySpace member to serve as show correspondent. MySpacer Olive Panter will cover all Comic Con action and report back to the MySpace Comic Books’ community via video reports from the convention floor after Comic Con has wrapped up.

Fans and friends of MySpace Comic Books can check out the community to find the latest comic book news, interviews, special features, contests, exclusives and more. MySpace Comic Books will spotlight the most exciting projects, creators and events in the industry including user generated comics by MySpace members themselves.

A year or two ago, some noise was being made by Clickwheel, a UK venture which hoped to develop comics content directly for iPods, presumably in a downloadable form via iTunes. Everyone agreed it was a good idea, but at least over stateside, it never became much more than a rumbling. Now, the company has been acquired by Rebellion, the publisher of 2000AD, and England’s premier comics producer:

Clickwheel Ltd, the comics to iPod company, has been acquired by computer games super-developer, Rebellion, developer of such video games as Alien vs Predator and Rogue Trooper.

“Being already involved in the next gen video game market, we know well the pace of development in world of entertainment”, says Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion/2000 AD. “With the acquisition of Clickwheel, we look forward to pushing the boundaries of innovation even further”.

“With user-generated content set to augment the mainstream, new media is becoming ever more key to success,” says Chris Kingsley, CTO of Rebellion/2000 AD. “Our acquisition of Clickwheel is a natural extension of our existing focus and we look forward to helping pioneer a new way of reading comics.”

Throughout its 15 years of developing video games, Rebellion has branched out into other media, most notably comics. In June 2000 Rebellion purchased the UK’s premier Sci-Fi Comic 2000 AD and its entire character portfolio consisting of characters including Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, ABC Warriors as well as 700 other unique IP’s.

Founded in 2005, Clickwheel Ltd is an online media company that enables users to create a media channel for their comics or movies and broadcast them live on Clickwheel.net or, from the iTunes Music Store, via an RSS feed.

The acquisition will be accompanied by a site-wide relaunch of Clickwheel.net, which will include a full redesign, tools to streamline the user experience, easier previews of downloads, customizable creator profile pages, new types of content, ratings, forums, and other community features.

“This is very good news for Clickwheel and comics generally”, says Will Simons, Creative Director of Clickwheel. “2007 promises to be a very interesting year for digital media with more new products and services than most of us will know what to do with, so it’s very exciting to be re-launching at the beginning of it.

Along with acquisition, Clickwheel is pleased to announce some personnel changes. The development of the Clickwheel website site will be handled by Big Newt Software Studio Ltd., led by Dave Astels and Nancy Blenkhorn. Big Newt is a boutique web application development and hosting company with a strong focus on quality workmanship, delivery of business value, and open-source tools & technologies. Additionally, Tim Demeter has been promoted to editor and will oversee all creative content matters.
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Get free 3-D glasses as Nickelodeon Magazine presents a Comic Carousel on Sunday February 25th at1PM in Room 1E16

Carousel: A series of cartoon slide shows and other projected pictures, presented by an array of comic strip makers, visual artists, performers, and other characters. Plenty of gags, goofiness, audience participation and 3-D action! Definitely for kids and alt-comics-loving adults. Hosted by cartoonist R. Sikoryak, and Nick Mag editors, Chris Duffy and Dave Roman.

Artists scheduled to appear include Sam Henderson (Scene But Not Heard), Michael Kupperman (Tales Designed To Thrizzle), Karen Sneider (Pony Up!) and Bill Alger (Cartoon Block Party) vs. an “advanced” cartooning super computer!

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Todd Allen is one of the more vocal proponents of making money through webcomics, and he’ll be introducing a new book on the topic at New York Comic-Con even as he starts making all kinds of guesses about Marvel and DC’s moves into webcomics, which he thinks could make a LOT of money for the publishers.

“All of a sudden, web comics are a hot topic, aren’t they?” writes Professor Todd Allen in the introduction “The Economics of Web Comics,” the second edition of his study on the business side of digital comics. “In October, Saheli Datta, a reporter from Business 2.0, made a number of phone calls to people involved with web comics, asking questions from a financial perspective. You may not have seen the article, and that may be because it’s been put on hold.”

Allen, an Adjunct Professor in the Arts, Entertainment & Media Management Department at Columbia College Chicago, goes on to describe DC announcing a mysterious web initiative scheduled for December 2006, causing Business 2.0 to sit on the article. An initiative that seems not to have happened, although DC Vice-President of Creative Services, Richard Brunning, has been added to the Web Comics panel at the New York Comic Con on February 23. Could a major announcement be planned?

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Do you like Crowds!? How about crowds of people dressed up like Klingons? How about hundreds of people lined up to get the newest Stargate 9 figurine!? Then come on down to the NY Comicon February 23rd-25th at the Javitz Center!

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