This Sunday, one of the last living Golden Age cartoonists, Creig Flessel will be presented with the Sparky Award at the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, 142 Throckmorton Avenue. Andrew Farrago writes:

On Sunday, October 28, Creig Flessel is receiving the Cartoon Art Museum’s Sparky Award at a ceremony in Mill Valley, CA. The Northern California branch of the National Cartoonists Society should be pretty well-represented there, and Jeannie Schulz plans to attend, as well. I’ll be conducting a brief interview session with Creig before the award ceremony.

Flessel is 95, and has a long career as a cartoonist and illustrator behind him. How far back does he go? He drew the covers of DETECTIVE before there was a Batman.

More info in the jump.
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The Eightball #22 case may have faded into the sunset, but commentators just can’t stop mining it. Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow takes a look back, with his own pointed commentary.

Also, Joanne Jacobs at Brittanica.com offers a measured appraisal, and brings up a notable parallel case:

Then again, consider the case of Kaleb Tierce, an honors English teacher (and assistant football coach) in Tuscola, Texas, who was suspended Oct. 15 for loaning a ninth-grade girl a book by Cormac McCarthy, Child of God, for a book report. The book is on the approved list for advanced ninth graders, though it features a murderer and necrophiliac. Tierce, who is 24, may face criminal charges of providing “harmful materials” to a minor.

Mel Gibson is too busy making his Easter Island version of the book of Ezekial, but George Miller is reportedly back for Mad Max IV and there’s a VERY SPECIAL screenwriter.

Considering that you really can’t trust anything that comes from Moviehole.net, for now we’re going to consider this just a rumor. Mad Max 4: Fury Road is based on a script from British comic book artist/writer Brendan McCarthy. Unfortunately Mel Gibson won’t be back, but hopefully that will allow for a newer, fresher face to fulfill the role of Mad Max Rockatansky. Maybe someone like Paul Walker or Mike Vogel, or how about shaking things up - Rosario Dawson?

Brendan McCarthy!

Brendan McCarthy!!

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Walmart unleashes a report on what’s hot for hHalloween, and superheroes are holding their own.

In the countdown to fright night, a peek into the Wal-Mart costume closet reveals America’s changing Halloween habits for 2007. In fact, with Halloween spending up 10 percent from 2006, the nation’s largest retailer serves as the best barometer on everything boo-ful: from the preferred garb of once-a-year ghosts and goblins to the continued popularity of pumpkins to the Fifi’s favorite frightful frock.

– The comic book costume craze continues as thousands of children across
the country have responded, “Spider-Man!” when asked what they’d like
to be this Halloween. Scream, Super Man, and Jack Sparrow also top the
list of most popular children’s costumes so far this year.
– Pumpkins are still the holiday’s hallowed icon, and sales at Wal-Mart
stores nationwide, show five states stand out as those where jack-o-
lanterns, pumpkin seeds and pumpkin pies are fall faves. This year,
customers in Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and
Massachusetts have purchased the most pumpkins consecutively (as of
October 19, 2007).
– Costume contests for pets? Maybe. Wal-Mart’s 2007 costume sales
indicate that dog owners who will parade with their pets this Halloween
prefer princesses, witches and rather than fangs, four-legged Dracula.

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Speaking of superheroic dressing methods, they are about to get the highest accolade possible: a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

The Metropolitan Museum will get a healthy dose of pop culture next spring when The Costume Institute opens its next exhibition, “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” on May 7, 2008.
Met curator Andrew Bolton tells WWD, “Originally, it was based on clothing that provided wearers with superhuman powers and that quite literally extended the the natural abilities of the human body, but over the years, we became more interested in the superheroes as metaphors for sex, power and politics.”

Can you say MUST SEE? Mark your calendars.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

As Paul O’Brien points out in the Marvel column, the margin between Marvel and DC Comics’ market shares in September is smaller than it’s been in months. The reason for that has more to do with Marvel’s performance losing steam than with DC gaining momentum, however. In fact, DC’s total and average sales were both down from August, despite September being a pretty packed month for DC’s mainstream line. There was a deluge of new one-shots and series, including three specials devoted to the wedding of characters Green Arrow and Black Canary, as well as five new series total spun off of the 52 and Countdown titles and the “Sinestro Corps War” story, among others. Additionally, DC’s perennial best-seller Justice League of America got a new writer, The Flash stopped being supported with gimmicks and incentives, and Outsiders concluded.

The company’s Vertigo and WildStorm imprints, meanwhile, both managed to increase their average and total sales in the North American periodical market in September, for a change. That’s not due to any sudden trend reversals or successful new launches either, mind you, but simply because three of their best-selling titles - the now bimonthly, soon-to-be-concluding Y: The Last Man for Vertigo and the irregularly shipping, dwindling Astro City and Ex Machina for WildStorm - all showed up in stores that month. Speaking of showing up, the number of DC books failing to do so was down to a manageable three in September, with Action Comics #856, Green Arrow: Year One #6 and Green Lantern Corps #16, and the former two only slipped by one week and came out in the first week of October. See below for the details.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

3 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
09/2001: JLA #58            —  68,996*
09/2002: JLA #71            —  60,608*
09/2002: JLA #72            —  60,778*
09/2003: JLA #86            —  59,496
09/2003: JLA #87            —  58,678
09/2004: JLA #105           —  60,836
09/2004: JLA #106           —  59,838 [ 60,943]
09/2005: JLA #118           —  89,428
09/2005: JLA #119           —  94,073 [106,305]
————————————–
09/2006: Justice League #2  — 143,412 (- 32.5%) [158,480]
10/2006: –
11/2006: Justice League #3  — 140,939 (-  1.7%) [143,310]
12/2006: Justice League #4  — 136,709 (-  3.0%) [139,123]
12/2006: Justice League #5  — 132,460 (-  3.1%) [133,924]
01/2007: –
02/2007: –
03/2007: Justice League #6  — 130,099 (-  1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7  — 154,984 (  19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8  — 130,365 (- 15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9  — 129,285 (-  0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (-  0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (-  5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (   7.0%)
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (-  9.1%)
—————-
6 months: - 8.2%
1 year  : -16.7%
2 years :  30.2%

New series writer Dwayne McDuffie’s debut issue is the lowest-selling since the book’s relaunch so far. That said, I have to admit I expected a sharper decline, given the high profile of McDuffie’s predecessor. For all intents and purposes, Justice League of America is still selling in the same ballpark as during the Brad Meltzer run. No doubt DC are very pleased with that.

Oh, and there are two different versions of issue #13, as you may have guessed. It seems that, unlike with issue #12, retailers were able to order as many units of each cover edition as they liked in this instance, though, and didn’t have to buy ten copies of the regular edition for every copy of the variant cover edition.

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Several new webcomics announcements that we need to catch up on:

Jeremy Love’s BAYOU is the first Zuda instant winner, it’s been announced.. The strip has already been awarded a 1-year contract, and was a solicited submission.

Bayou
Writer/Artist: Jeremy Love

Summary: South of the Mason-Dixon lurks a strange world of gods and monsters born of years of slavery, civil war, innocent blood, hate and strife. The daughter of a poor black sharecropper, Lee Wagstaff, joins a blues-singing swamp monster name Bayou on a southern odyssey through a mythic combination of depression era Mississippi, African mythology and American folklore in order to rescue her childhood friend and save her father’s life.

Daniel Kibblesmith & K. Thor Jensen join The Chemistry Set with ‘Threads of Red Jack’:

In a city called Flint, almost as ugly as the real one, something has begun to stir in the pockets of wet shadow. Under hood and mask and clad to the toetips in red, a man has emerged in the alleyways with no memories of his person, his place, or his purpose. A prophecy-mangling amputee has taken to holding court in the street. Several stories above it all, a selfless psychiatric visionary is about to unleash a catastrophic new weapon in the battle with mental illness. Threads of Red Jack is a search for identity, a fable about anger that has outlived its usefulness, and a throwdown between the madmen in power and the madmen with none.

Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood have also joined the Chemistry Set with their mini-series THE GLOOM.

The Gloom is the tale of Carson Kane, a 1940’s industrialist who, by night, takes to the street as an Angel of Vengeance, his two hellfire pistols in his hands. But, although it pulls from the best of 40’s pulp iconology, it’s been dubbed ‘A Mel Brooks movie of a comic’ for its parody and humor. From Nazis to talking monkeys in fez’s, to atomic terrorists to Britain’s first super team, The Gloom has it all. Silver Bullet Comic Books reviewer Reggie Rigby even said of it “buy this book - sell a kidney if you have to.”

Finally, Molly Crabapple and her Dr. Sketchy’s co-author John Leavitt are doing a webcomic on Act-i-vate. Backstage is a comedy/murder mystery set in the burlesque halls of old New York.

Check out this animated trailer for THE NIGHTMAE FACTORY

MySpace continues it’s prominent comics promotions with this animated trailer for THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY graphic novel. The trailer is based on “Dr Locrian’s Asylum” by Joe Harris and Ted McKeever. It’s pretty astonishing what these kids can do with their computers these days!

If the idea of Bob Dylan, Mr. Mumbles himself, having a radio show sounds like some kind of comedy sketch, you’d be wrong. He has a show on XM Satellite radio called THEME TIME RADIO HOUR, on which he simply spins his favorite records, and the show is highly spoken of. Now, one of the producers has commissioned Jaime Hernandez to draw a promo poster for the show, which you can see above in all its glory — the various vignettes refer to incidents in the show opening. You can see the poster in much better detail here.
[Link via Boing Boing.]

Hype alert! PW has a series of breakfast discussions under the banner “Think Future” that look at publishing trends and developments with movers and shakers. The next one covers graphic novels and it features John Cunningham (DC), Dan Frank Pantheon), Rich Johnson (Yen Press), Joe Quesada (Marvel) and Bill Schanes (Diamond). I’ll be co-moderating with Calvin Reid and it should be worth getting up for. Ticket information in the jump.

COMICS & GRAPHICS NOVELS
HARNESSING THE POWER OF VISUAL LITERATURE

As the web, mobile content, social networking and video games become the language of youth culture, many feel that graphic novels will become an even more important tool for literacy and education. Our panel will explore the growing impact of comics and graphic novels on the book market and will discuss the latest domestic and international trends in comics publishing.

* What is manga mania and how has it changed the U.S. book market?
* Will sales continue to grow and where?
* How can publishers maximize sales through bookstores and through the comics shop market?
* How will the growing interest in comics as an educational tool affect schools and libraries?

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Before he drew CALVIN & HOBBES, the comic strip that made talking to your tiger all the rage, and before he become a reclusive painter, Bill Watterson drew a college comic strip for Kenyon College. Now these rareky-seen strips have been put on the internet for all to share:

While a student at Ohio’s Kenyon College, Bill drew cartoons for the school newspaper The Kenyon Collegian and for the yearbook. Thanks to the generosity of Nat D., a schoolmate of Bill, here are scans of Bill’s work from that era.

Not as funny as C&H but the early style is similar, and it’s interested to see how he tightened and simplified his linework. And boy he must be overjoyed tat this work is being seen again.

You lucky Left Coasters! San Francisco’s Museum of Cartoon Art is presenting an exhibit of artwork by Mary Blair, the designer and illustrator whose work for Disney and Little Golden Books has influenced generations of artists. The pr is below, but you can also see a preview at Andrew Farrago’s blog.

The Art and Flair of Mary Blair
October 27, 2007 - March 18, 2008
Reception December 4, 2007

“Mention the name Mary Blair, and few will recognize it. But say she designed ‘Alice In Wonderland,’ the ‘It’s A Small World’ ride at Disneyland, and painted many of the most popular Little Golden Books, and people will ‘Oh yeah!’ in recognition. Few others working in animation in the ’40s and ’50s were as innovative, interesting, and accessible as Mary Blair. Through her unique color styling and graphically strong shape language, her work pushed animation design in a different direction towards a more evocative, suggested feeling of the subject matter.

“Blair’s work is decidedly not realistic, but it evokes powerful emotions in the audience. Her sense of color defies logical explanation, yet somehow feels emotionally perfect. No wonder Walt Disney loved her work. Like animation itself, her paintings were a caricature of real life; more intensely evocative of the thing than the thing itself.”
–Pete Docter, Director of “Monsters, Inc.,” Pixar Animation Studios

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UGO asks Neil Gaiman, Ozzy Osbourne, Clive Barker, Brian Posehn, Tiger Woods and many others what may be the burning question of our times: Who would in in a fight: a minotaur armed with a trident or a centaur armed with a crossbow?. We’re betting on the centaur because they have TWO eyes.

In case you were wondering who WON the Scream Awards for Horror, SF, Fantasy and Comics, we have the whole list below. We will note that the award for BEST SCREEN-TO-COMIC was won by 28 DAYS LATER: THE AFTERMATH, published by Fox Atomic. Go team Fox Atomic! Other comic book category winners included Frank Miller, John Cassaday, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and the death of Captain America. 300 also won many of the movie awards.

All winners in the jump.
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Via Anne Thompson, a link to Variety’s Slanguage Dictionary which this cranky Brit nixes. We were first amused then horrified to see how much of this made up bibble babble we use all the time — “Mark Millar will helm this ep of the Peacock Network skein.” Maybe it’s time to start reading a better class of slang, like the sports page or The National Review.

Zuda finally announces the line-up and if it’s anything, it’s diverse, with known talents like Corey Lewis, Pop Mhan, Sho Murase and Steve Ellis up against total unknowns. They’re all competing for a briefcase with one million dollars in it, apparently. Anyway, here’s the PR:

In anticipation of the launch of Zudacomics.com, DC Comics announced today the ten entries in the first ever Zudacomics.com competition. These webcomics are diverse in both their subject matter and tone, spanning a wide variety of genres— from horror to western to fantasy. Aspiring creators and comics fans alike will be invited to vote for one of the ten comics to continue as a regular web comic on the site. The competition winners will, in turn, receive contracts to create a year’s worth of their comic for the site.

“If Zuda Comics are to have common traits they’re quality and diversity”, said Ron Perazza, Director, Creative Services. “For this first competition we selected people from different creative fields, both within and outside of traditional comics, based on the strength of their concepts. It was a bit of a creative experiment but the results were fantastic. This is going be a tough competition!”

The first Zudacomics.com competition features the following webcomics:

Title: Alpha Monkey
Writer/Artist: Bobbie Rubio/Howard M. Shum
Summary: In a misguided attempt to save his son from the destruction of Earth by a comet (which then happens to miss the Earth entirely) a scientist rockets his son into another dimension. The child ends up on a parallel world ruled by Monkeys! Given unique powers by the planet’s bananas, the young boy fights off invading monsters as the planet’s new defender, Alpha Monkey!

Title: This American Strife
Writer/Artist: Jason Longo
Summary: A quirky, humorous “Dear Diary” recounting of the artist’s observations on life, This American Strife is a sharp-witted visual stab at editorial blogging.

Title: Battlefield Babysitter
Writer/Artist: Matthew Humphreys
Summary: In a family of superheroes, in a city of superheroes, in a world of superheroes, Katherine Fields is a babysitter. But when a routine night of babysitting turns into a villainous invasion, Katherine finds herself transformed into a super strong heroine. At $8.00 and hour, it’s going to be a long night.

Title: Black Swan
Writer/Artist: Mulele Jarvis
Summary: A young college student, Nina, is embroiled in a 500-year-old vendetta when she encounters a spirit bound to a mystic dagger left on her doorstep. Implicated in murder and on the run from a detective possessed by a rival spirit it’s up to Nina to relive an age-old battle – without dying in the process.

Title: Dead in the Now
Writer/Artist: Corey Lewis
Summary: When Braz – a young, cynical boy – discovers the world’s first authentic zombie he decides to end Earth’s monotonous routine and usher in an age of zombie-infested, chaotic adventure! Gathering supplies and weapons, Braz sets his friends up like modern, urban Lost Boys with himself as their Pan.

Title: The Dead Seas
Writer/Artist: Pop Mhan
Summary: Legions of undead controlled by Necromancer warlords destroy life as we know it, plunging the Earth into a futuristic Dark Age. But it’s adventure and romance on The Dead Seas as a swashbuckling young pirate named Devin teams up with an adventurous crusader name Luna. Armed with the secret of Pandora’s Box, they set out destroy the Necromancers and save the world.

Title: The Enders
Writer/Artist: Tim Smith III
Summary: Aluna didn’t ask to be given godlike power and she certainly didn’t ask for her parents to be killed in the process – but the enigmatic alien known as The Ender works in mysterious ways. Without time to grieve, Aluna is tasked with using her power to save the Earth from imminent destruction. The only question – how?

Title: High Moon
Writer/Artist: David Gallaher/Steve Ellis
Summary: It’s the fading days of the Old West in the late 1890’s when an enigmatic drifter, Matthew Macgregor, ambles into the dusty town of Blest, Texas. The nights are cold in Texas as Werewolves secretly haunt the town, but Macgregor has a supernatural secret of his own. When the sun sets it’ll be a showdown at High Moon.

Title: Leprenomicon
Writer/Artist: Greg DelCurla/Fernando Ruiz
Summary: In old Ireland, when the banshee sings for you it means that your time on this Earth is coming to an end. But American Michael O’Connor refuses to take this news lying down. With the (forced) help of a kidnapped Leprechaun, he intends to solve the mystery of his own death even if it turns the world of faeries, gods, and plain old normal folk upside down.

Title: Raining Cats and Dogs
Writer/Artist: Sho Murase
Summary: A young, snake-haired gorgon named Mika, winds her way through the contemporary, everyday wonderland of dating, work, after-hours adventures and everything in between alongside her friends Apple (a rokurokubi energy-vampire), Feebe (a bake-neko cat girl) and Akiha (a normal human).

Following the site’s launch, the majority of the competitions will feature webcomics submitted to Zuda through the website’s submissions process. As with the inaugural competition, Zudacomics.com’s visitors will vote for the webcomics that they want to see continue on the site.

Technorati Tags: Zuda

The Post That Wouldn’t Die continues to captivate the blogosphere, and many of my private conversations. My mom called to say she enjoyed it, which was nice. Eddie Campbell, ties it in with a larger thesis of conservatism breeding homogeniety in comics.

Frank Santoro author of STOREYVILLE, pipes up independently, and I would be overjoyed if his comments were substitued for mine, because he says what I was trying to say in a paragraph:

I feel like I need to be careful here because I’m not saying that I don’t like the new crafty, abstract work that was in evidence this year — I’m simply taking note that there is something new going on. And I like it. The work is beautiful. I do, however, lament the absence of strong characters in this new trend. Whether the comic is well-executed or dashed off what I notice is there isn’t much of a story or any real characters to identify with. There’s no distance, no mediator between the artist’s intention and the reader’s comprehension. I know I’m over-generalizing here. But it’s sort of like abstract painting, which I love, but often leaves me wanting more. Yet the work is usually so visually stunning that one has to hope that the craft and narrative elements will start to balance out. And, ultimately, I hold out much more hope for this approach to making alt comics than the rehashing of every Clowes, Ware, or Tomine story of the last 15 years.

I don’t mean to taint Santoro as an ally — he just happened to notice the same thing I’ve been noticing.

Of course for every person who shares the same concerns, there are the continuing grossly unhelpful over-generalizarions such as the reduction of my argument to “Chris Ware hates storytelling comics” . The worst offender is undoubtedly this guy who, shamefully, actually thinks he agrees with me . No you don’t, and just go away.

Independently, The Comics Journal crowd goes on for 14 pages over Craig Yoe’s yearly lament that “the kids can’t draw.” The Golden Age of comics truly was Roy Crane, and Craig and I probably agree on that.

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The First Second blog is featuring essays on comics creation by comics creators every monday. The topics so far have ranged from where authors get ideas to the book market to poetry in comics. This week, Leland Myrick
talks about poetry and comics:

During the panel discussion in San Diego, I got quite a few questions from the audience about the process I went through with my :01 graphic novel MISSOURI BOY. I had mentioned in my introduction on the panel that each chapter in MISSOURI BOY had begun life as a poem, none of which (except for the last chapter) were meant at the time of their writing to be anything but poems, poems to be put away in a drawer somewhere or possibly to be read aloud to friends and family at a poetry reading.

Previously, Derek Kirk Kim checks into his bookstore sales.

Zuda, DC’s much awaited all new initiative, arrives in one week, according to an email sent to their mailing list. Also word of a launch party that day.

It’s been a while since our last e-mail. What can we say? It’s been kind of hectic here as we finalize development, do testing and fine tune the site. Hopefully you’ve seen some of our ads running in select issues of DCU, Vertigo and WildStorm comics. The other imprints have been very supportive so don’t forget to spread some of your comic dollars their way. We here at Zuda HQ are planning on doing things a bit differently - once we go live, we’re going to give our comics away for free! Take that, Corporate America! So when do we go live? I’m glad I rhetorically asked that.

Zuda Comics goes live October 30th, 2007!

On that magical day, when fairies push back the clouds and allow the golden rays of the sun to shine through, flowers bloom to the sweet melodies of harps, a parade of majestic, rainbow-colored unicorns prance down Broadway and corruption is eliminated as the rule of law is reestablishing in the United States (ok, maybe that last one is a bit far fetched) you’ll be able to read our first ongoing series and read, rate, vote and more in the first Zuda Competition!

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The Telegraph profiles Posy Simmonds, who we are told, is read by millions in the UKm thanks to her long running newspaper strip POSY, and books GEMMA BOVARY and the upcoming TAMARA DREWE.

Posy Simmonds, the writer and cartoonist, lives in a quiet Georgian square between King’s Cross and Islington in London. From her window you can see a flicker-book of railings and sycamore trees and, if you crane your head, the Post Office Tower, closer than you might imagine. Today a man in white overalls is spread-eagled across some scaffolding, painting the woodwork. Two cars are parked in the road outside: a Volvo four-by-four and a low-slung, gunmetal-grey 1970s Citroën DS.

TAMARA DREWE, which is based on Hardy’s FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, is out in November in the UK. We couldn’t find any official word of a US edition, but it will be available in Canada.

Gorilla Nation, one of the more prominent online ad agencies, announces that they’ll be selling as space for Marvel’s website. not too much to be read into this except that if you are getting 21 million page views a month, you should be making very good revenue from online advertising.

Gorilla Nation (www.gorillanation.com), the world’s largest online ad rep firm, announced today that it has been selected to exclusively represent the online ad inventory for Marvel.com (www.marvel.com).

Marvel is one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies. Rooted in the creative success of over sixty years of comic book publishing, Marvel’s strategy is to leverage its character franchises in a growing array of opportunities around the world. Marvel has become the #1 choice for advertisers looking to reach the all-important, elusive kid, teen and young adult male target audience. With an incredible 21 million page views per month, the property represents one of the most engaging destinations on the web today. Prime demographics include 64% ages 18-49 with 54% HHI $60K+.

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As wildfires continue to ravage southern California, uprooting half a million people, concerns over comics folks living and working near the fires keep coming up. IDW’s Andrew Steven Harris wrote give the happy news that everyone at IDW is accounted for:

We’re getting a lot of inquiries from our readers, creators and other industry folk about how we’re doing down here in San Diego with all the wildfires nearby, so I thought I’d drop you a quick note to let you know how things are going. A few of our staffers are already under mandatory evacuation from their homes, and the edge of the evacuation zone is actually just a few miles from the IDW offices, but given how these fires have ravaged huge sections of the county, we’re thus far extremely lucky that nobody here has suffered any catastrophic losses yet. The evacuation zone is actually much closer to the offices of our friends over at Wildstorm in La Jolla, and a number of staffers there have also had to evacuate their homes, so we’re all keeping our fingers crossed for them.

Comic Book Resources has a long article detailing the situation at various stores throughout the area, as well as residents, and gives a fuller picture of the situation at Wildstorm:

CBR News spoke with three more members of the San Diego comics community Tuesday evening. Wildstorm founder and Editorial Director Jim Lee wrote to say that their offices aren’t at risk and while about 15% of the company’s employees have been forced to evacuate, everyone is safe and accounted for. “There was a big, but smaller fire, back in 2003 and the city and county learned from their mistakes and the evacs have gone pretty smoothly as the 911 reverse calling system calls people at their homes with notifications to move out as the fires change direction and threatens new neighborhoods,” Lee told CBR News.

We’ll continue to update with developments. Continued good thoughts to all caught up in this disaster.

How can you not love Mark Millar? He’s daring an audacious, and onlyhe would come up with the idea of posting his intention to write fanfic as if it were a movie assignment:

It’s 8.58am right now, my guys at CAA get into the office in about seven hours and my call will be waiting for them to talk about this. I want to revamp Superman like Hillary wants thin ankles. Revamping this franchise is what I as given fingers for and so, invited or not, I’m putting my plan together now. I’ve been asked to work on half a dozen screenplays lately, but this is the only one I have ever truly wanted.

As most here know, I have literally hundreds of pages of notes and sketches just waiting for this opportunity. This would be my dream gig and, as a fan, I know exactly what this project needs to work. This has to be Superman for the 21st Century, keeping everything we adore, but starting from scratch and making the kids love it as much as the 30-somethings. I would honestly write this thing for free.

Anyway, my treatment is being polished as we type. Wish me luck. I want to do that Superman movie we all want to see.

Of course, we were being a little mean with that “fanfic” comment — we haven’t read any Millar scripts, but he has as much of a chance at writing a decent Superman story as anyone, in theory.

In other news, we just heard they’re making a HOBBIT movie, and there’s a message waiting for our friend, Mary Sue. This would be our dream gig and, as a fan, we know exactly what this project needs to work.

UPDATE: Well, it seems Mark’s dream will not come true after all. He’s too associated with Marvel to pen a Dc superhero.

Anyway, my agent is a big beast at CAA and can set up meetings with anyone. I’m always amazed by this because, like all comic guys, I do this job in a converted attic at home on a rainy rock some miles from mainland Europe and about as far from Hollywood as you can get. But my agent got my call around 4pm my time on Tuesday and within hours we were talking on the phone to some very nice exec at Warner Bros who said that several producers and director friends had already been in touch to push me for the gig because they knew how passionate I was about this project. And for about fifteen minutes things were looking very sweet. I had a massive three-picture epic in mind, cribbed from notes I’ve been putting together for the last five years for a Superman comic-book revamp and the people I spoke to absolutely loved it. Everyone said this was very, very exciting, but…

Well, sadly, I’m a Marvel guy and we were surprised to find out that WB couldn’t hire me for a DC property. They were incredibly nice and superbly apologetic about it, but when they discussed the matter seriously DC explained just how associated I am with Marvel Comics at the moment and it’s against company policy to hire the competition. It’s absolutely nothing personal. I spoke to some friends at DC and they explained this has happened with a couple of big Marvel writers in the last couple of years and I absolutely respect that. It’s a business after all and to have a guy writing Fantastic Four, 1985, Kick-Ass and another super-big project for Steve McNiven this year which would be mentioned in every article about a Superman movie is not only an insult to their own writers, but makes bad business sense. I have nothing but respect for the DC high-ups and, though obviously disappointed, can absolutely appreciate their position. They’re the custodians of these properties and they obviously know what they’re doing.

My uncle’s paintings will soon be seen internationally in two exhibits:

September 11th through November 11
The Kingdom of the Streets
At the University of Southern Maine
Woodbury Center, Portland Me.
*
November 24th through January 5th
Notes From The Amerikas
Underground
Paintings and drawings at the
Brewhouse Gallery, Staffordshire UK

[”Duct Tape Viking” ©2007 Peter McFarland]

Here in this very blog, people were complaining the other day that Neil Gaiman always wears the same leather jacket. Well that is not ALWAYS the case, as this bee blog explains, going so far as to post a picture of Gaiman in a white beekeeping suit! That’s Neil failing to wear gloves while stirring up a hive of angry bees. We think you can guess what happened next.

Speaking of Gaiman, CBR caught him on the red carpet of the Scream Awards for some talk about SANDMAN:

A few months ago in CBR’s Lying in the Gutters, Rich Johnston reported that a new Neil Gaiman “Sandman” miniseries, originally planned to commemorate the 25 th anniversary of the ground-breaking title, fell apart when publisher DC Comics and Gaiman couldn’t come to a suitable arrangement. “Basically, there were people at DC who wanted to make it happen, and there were people at DC who were not prepared to do very much to make it happen,” Gaiman told CBR News. “They were perfectly happy for me to write it as long as we wrote it on the same terms that I started writing ‘Sandman’ on in 1987, but nothing better than that. And they wouldn’t move on it.”

Gaiman said the aborted series would have been a prequel to his “The Sandman” epic. “In ‘Sandman’ #1, [Dream] is captured and we learn a little bit later on that he had been doing something halfway across the galaxy, and had come back in a state of a complete exhaustion,” Gaiman said. “And [the new series] would have been the story of what he’d been doing there and what had happened.”

The writer said that whether or not the story ever sees the light of day depends primarily on his schedule and DC Comics’ willingness to negotiate a more equitable deal.

While one wonders what kind of deal the now best selling author Gaiman would demand, there’s no question but that any Sandman related by Gaiman would be the bee’s knees and sell like hot cakes.