• Option watch: Mandalay Pictures has picked up UNTHINKABLE by author Mark Sable and artist Julian Totino Tedesco. The book is published by BOOM!. Ross Richie and Andrew Cosby will produce, along with Mandalay’s Peter Gruber and Cathy Schulman.

Created and written by Mark Sable, “Unthinkable” centers on a brilliant man who was recruited just after 9/11 into a government think tank consisting of America’s most imaginative minds and tasked with dreaming up wild scenarios for possible attacks on U.S. soil. Years after the think tank was disbanded, the attacks the man concocted begin to occur, and he becomes the only one who can stop them. But the government has become his pursuer.

UNTHINKABLE gained a bit of notoriety earlier this year when Sable was detained at LAX after authorities found one of the scripts for the book.
• Meanwhile, Aurora has optioned Platinum’s NIGHTFALL by Scott O. Brown and Ferran Xalabarder. The story concerns a man in a prison full of vampires. Has anyone ever seen a copy of this comic?
• Warren Ellis’s GLOBAL FREQUENCY — a 12 issue maxiseries about eh covert operations that battles other covert operations– has already been the subject of a TV pilot, spearheaded by John Rogers and starring Michele Forbes. Although well received by those who saw it, it was never picked up, some say because of anger over the pilot being leaked onto bit torrent sites. (It seems like this would pass for valuable pre-awareness these days.) But someone is trying it again, Ellis writes:

The CW will again try to adapt Warren Ellis’ comic book “Global Frequency,” this time Scott Nimerfro will script the pilot.

Does this count as a remake?

• Idris Elba, lately of THE LOSERS, will play Heimdall in the Thor movie. We did not know Elba was Norse but welcome his participation.

With Kitty Pryde as Bella.

We enjoyed this video AND the ad for ZORRO DVDs that ran before it!

While we ourselves didn’t have time to link, much less peruse its contents, the entirety of the epoch-defining 30tth issue of The Comics Journal was online for free yesterday. But then someone pulled the plug, Dirk Deppey recounts:

Yeah, I’m afraid that on Gary Groth’s instructions the experiment in online marketing has been cancelled. Sorry.

The line-up of contents remains as stunning as before:
• Art Spiegelman and Kevin Huizenga
• Jean-Christophe Menu and Sammy Harkham
• Frank Quitely and Dave Gibbons
• Dave Mazzucchelli and Dash Shaw
• Alison Bechdel and Danica Novgorodoff
• Howard Chaykin and Ho Che Anderson
• Denny O’Neil and Matt Fraction
• Jaime Hernandez and Zak Sally
• Ted Rall and Matt Bors
• Jim Borgman and Keith Knight
• Stan Sakai and Chris Schweizer

And we’ll read it when our hard copy arrives, just like always. Johanna Draper Carlson has commentary.

On another matter, late last night a story on Variety.com was making the rounds stating that the Warriors Three had been cast for the Thor movie. But it seems whoever wrote the story had gotten his ’60s Marvel characters mixed up, since — not trying to sound racist or anything — but casting a slender Asian man as Volstagg the Voluminous didn’t make much sense. Anyway, Marvel.com has the final lineup:

Fandral will be played by Stuart Townsend. The job of Hogun goes to Tadanobu Asano. And Volstagg will be portrayed Ray Stevenson.

That’s more like it.

When Marvel sends out one of their teasers on a Friday afternoon with a picture of a monkey and asks “Who Is One Of The Most Exciting New Comic Characters of The Century?” we’re happy to play along.

Last week’s Spider-Man musical showdown seems to have had a successful conclusion, inasmuch as it resulted in positive press releases being sent out. Former Live Nation president Michael Cohl has been brought in to make sure the financially beleaguered production actually makes it to the stage; the inexperienced David Garfinkel, whose missteps are widely believed to be part of the problem, has been demoted to third, after Jeremiah J. Harris.

Most importantly, actor/musician Reeve Carney has been officially cast as Spider-Man; Carney stars in director Julie Taymor’s The Tempest as Prince Ferdinand, and heads his own band, Carney.

While people are saying the show will go on, no one is saying when — Spidey the Musical will miss is previous February start, and probably this year’s Tony Award nomination cut-off, as well.

UPDATE: It seems that today is the day of decision, as the NY Times and Post report. Today a meeting is being held to decide the future of the show. Fingers crossed!

John Horn in the LA Times finally has a fully researched–he’s even read the script– story on the sprawling mess that is the Spider-Man musical. The death of a key player, scheduling conflicts, inexperienced producers — you name it. It’s a rogue gallery of woes. The show has a total budget of $52 million and would need $1 million a week just to keep running. The biggest problem with the troubled production — originally slated to open next February but rehearsals haven’t even begun and a lack of funds seems to have stopped all progress — was its incredible ambitions, which would have made it the most spectacular musical ever staged:

The opening bridge scene is followed closely by the arrival of a giant web woven by Arachne, a temptress who is the musical’s central invention. “A giant loom is revealed — seven actors swing on vertical silks to form a tapestry,” the stage directions read. At another point, Spider-Man is so busy battling bank robbers and muggers that he multiplies into five different crime-fighting superheroes. One of the duplicate spiders swings over the audience, landing on the balcony.

Yet some folks remain hopeful that it will get additional funding, among them show composer Bono:

“For me it’s this wonderful thing of escaping from the first-person songwriting, to disappear into these outside characters, it’s just been a thrill of a ride,” Bono said. “You spend so much time digging up diamonds in your own music; it’s a treat to dig in somebody’s else’s dirt. To work on these songs was like a playpen.”

According to the piece in addition to previously confirmed Evan Rachel Wood as MJ and Alan Cumming as Green Goblin, Spider-Man would be played, as much speculated by Reeve Carney, who has a role in director Julie Taymor’s upcoming TEMPEST movie. Carney has a musical background, but is other wise little known. However, his Twitter page makes everything much clearer:

Hello! I am in a band called CARNEY and I love John Cena.

Works for us.

By Paul O’Brien

It’s an unusually hectic month on Marvel’s release schedule. Aside from the usual raft of Dark Reign tie-ins, major releases include the OLD MAN LOGAN one-shot, the second month of the relaunched Ultimate imprint, the DARK AVENGERS/UNCANNY X-MEN crossover “Utopia”, the LIST one-shots, and relaunches of SPIDER-WOMAN and MOON KNIGHT.

As usual, Marvel had the biggest share of the North American direct market. They beat DC by 41% to 30% in dollar terms, and 48% to 33% in units.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

2.  CAPTAIN AMERICA: REBORN
09/04  Captain America #31  -  37,128
09/05  Captain America #10  -  52,609
09/06  Captain America #22  -  82,230
09/07  Captain America #30  -  79,554
=====
09/08  Captain America #42  -  75,574  ( -11.1%)
10/08  Captain America #43  -  72,405  (  -4.2%)
11/08  Captain America #44  -  75,493  (  +4.3%)
12/08  Captain America #45  -  71,186  (  -5.7%)
01/09  Captain America #46  -  73,184  (  +2.8%)
02/09  Captain America #47  -  62,850  ( -14.1%)
03/09  Captain America #48  -  62,108  (  -1.2%)
04/09  Captain America #49  -  63,874  (  +2.8%)
05/09  Captain America #50  -  72,708  ( +13.8%)
06/09  Captain America #600 - 123,152  ( +69.4%)
07/09  Captain America #601 -  87,844  ( -28.7%)
07/09  Reborn #1 of 5       - 197,565  (+124.9%)
08/09  Reborn #2 of 5       - 125,366  ( -36.5%)
09/09  Reborn #3 of 5       - 108,331  ( -13.6%)
                               6 mnth  ( +74.4%)
                               1 year  ( +43.3%)
                               2 year  ( +36.2%)
                               3 year  ( +31.7%)
                               4 year  (+105.9%)
                               5 year  (+191.8%)

This one comes with two variant covers, with 1:10 and 1:25 incentives. Since issue #2 had three 1:25 variants, the drop’s actually quite modest. Meanwhile, issue #1 picks up estimate reorders of 4,423, which is enough to scrape the bottom of the chart at number 289.

When you bear in mind that REBORN is effectively a CAPTAIN AMERICA story arc, these are great numbers. The “death of Steve Rogers” storyline has been boosting sales for years now already, but this has sent them even further skyward. If you judge this as CAPTAIN AMERICA #604 - which it could easily have been - the numbers are clearly stellar.
(more…)

Let’s just keep this Art Day here at Stately Beat Manor. Here’s a preview of Marvel’s STRANGE TALES #3, on sale TOMORROW, with an EXCLUSIVE page from Jeffrey Brown and two pages from Paul Hornschemeier’s Nightcrawler tale.

The insanely talented Brendan McCarthy is writing and drawing aDr. Strange series for Marvel’s Marvel Knights imprint, to be entitled FEVER. McCarthy and Steve Cook will collaborate on the coloring. Here’s a test promo for the series.

Via Sean.

A stunned world woke up to the news that now you can read Marvel Comics on your iPhone, via the four platforms best known for their comics offerings: Comixology, iVerse, Panelfly and Scrollmotion. A story on Marvel.com talks to EVP, Marvel Digital Media Ira Rubenstien.

Marvel digital comics availability on the iPhone Apps system joins the recently announced venture offering individual classic Marvel comics for download on Sony’s PSP device and, of course, the pioneering Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited subscription service that launched nearly two years ago and features an ever-expanding selection of over 7,000 comics!

“As technology grows, the ways fans can consume our comics must expand as well,” Rubenstein said. “We’re very cognizant of that and will continue to explore avenues to offer the widest variety of fun ways for fans to read Marvel comics. Stay tuned for announcements coming soon regarding not only more iPhones apps, but ways to enjoy Marvel digital comics on other devices!”

Although what’s available on Scrollmotion wasn’t readily apparent, Bleeding Cool had a rundown of the comics available:

Comixology: (71 issues, $1.99 each)

Age of Apocalypse #1–6
Astonishing X-Men #1–24 (Full Whedon Cassaday run)
Captain America #1–30 (Brubaker, Epting)
Marvel Zombies #1–5
X-23 #1–6

iVerse: (37 issues, $1.99 each)

Age of Apocalypse #1–6
Amazing Spider-Man #519–524
Astonishing X-Men #1–12
Captain America #1–6 (Brubaker, Epting)
Invincible Iron Man #1–6
X-23 #1–6

Panelfly (84 issues, $0.99 each)

Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #1-25 (Lee, Ditko)
Amazing Spider-Man #519-524
Astonishing X-Men #1-24
Invincible Iron Man #1-16
X-23 #1-6
Age Of Apocalypse #1-6

Obviously there is some overlap, but also exclusives for each.

Most interesting, if the email we’ve gotten since the announcement is any indication, is the pricing: Comixology and iVerse have priced comics at $1.99, a dollar more than their usual offerings. Panelfly is sticking with 99 cents.

Seriously, can we declare a moratorium on the use of the hype phrase “He’s doing the best work of his career here” by editors, writers, publishers, etc in promotional interviews. In this case it is Mark Millar talking about Steve McNiven and their new Marvel project, NEMESIS. But after you’ve read “Spike’s work on Final Secret: Attack of the Colon Dance is the best of his career” 20 or 80 times, it begins to lose some punch.

Wednesday past saw MarvelFest

NYC 2009 unfold at NYC’s Union Square, traditionally one of the most traversed public spaces of the city. A cold, gloomy rain dried up just in time to make for a cold, brisk night that was just the right mood for a pre-Halloween costume contest. CBR’s Josh Wigler has a report and an interview with Marvel’s MIke Pasciullo:

Was that a big reason behind bringing this event outdoors - so that you can literally drag people off the street and get them involved?

Absolutely. There’s a lot of traffic here just walking by, and when you have a spectacle or a festival like this, you kind of get their attention. They probably haven’t been to a comic book store or read a comic in years, so it’s a great opportunity for us to get that walk-by traffic. It’s basically us taking the message to the people, as opposed to trying to get the people to the message.

The entire event was a bit unorganized to say the least, but it definitely had a festive mood. While we’re still unconvinced by the motion comics format in general — it is safe to say that projection onto the side of a building did not degrade its quality — it was a fun event, and the number of cute girls dressed as Marvel characters zooming around on Segways alone made it a memorable night. Lest we be accused of sexism, there were also some cute Nightcrawlers and Spideys.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins has signed up as Odin, all-father and dad of the the hero in the Thor movie now underway.

Kinda speaks for itself.The old order changeth,

Marvel’s Senior VP of Sales David Gabriel doesn’t do that many in-depth interviews, so a four-part mega-chat currently running in the retailers-only Diamond Daily is definitely worth reading. Diamond graciously made the text available to The Beat and there’s much of interest, which we’ll do our best to summarize.

In response to Gabriel’s recent announcement at the Diamond Retailer Summit that Marvel would be doing smaller events, lasting only a few months as opposed to yearlong mega-events, Gabriel says it was a widespread feeling. “Everybody is in absolute agreement that the longer these stories play out, the less likely people are to be interested in them,” but denies this means “event fatigue”:

I really think there is no event fatigue. When we hear that here in the office, we all sit back and say there isn’t event fatigue; there’s extended, prolonged story fatigue. That’s what nobody wants.

But still, the fans are still going crazy over stuff like bannering books and sticking crossover labels on things. We also love that, as fanboys. We all love seeing stuff like the Utopia banner on a bunch of books. I’ll even give a shout-out to Blackest Night’s bannering. But I think we realized towards the latter part of Secret Invasion that sometimes [the story] is too long. It’s just too long.

We’re going to try to get in and out now, hopefully within four issues. The editorial idea is that everything is going to be big and fast.

(more…)

If Colleen Doran’s exposé of a secret Fabio-financed Thor cartoon starring the romance model as the Thunder God is to be believed…terrifyingly close.

Oh Chris Sims, you are funny. Via Comics Alliance.

VIA PR and the NY Post, word of a new “MarvelFest” on October 28th which will see Marvel’s ASTONISHING X-MEN motion comic projected three stories high on the now-closed Virgin Mega-Store at Union SQuare in NYC. Creator appearances and a costume contest complete the festivities.

Let’s just hope it’s a little warmer then than it is now! PR below:

Marvel is proud to announce MarvelFest NYC 2009 (www.marvel.com/fest), an all-new interactive outdoor experience in New York City to celebrate the iTunes release of the groundbreaking Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic on October 28th. In celebration of the release of the AXM Motion Comic, based on the award winning story by superstars Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and John Cassaday (Captain America), this landmark first episode will be projected three stories high so that fans can experience the adventure like never before! Join celebrities and the biggest names in Marvel history to commemorate the Astonishing X-Men premiere!
 
The festivities begin at 4pm at Forbidden Planet (www.fpnyc.com), when some of Marvel’s most legendary creators, including Neal Adams (Uncanny X-Men), Chris Claremont (Uncanny X-Men, X-Men Forever), and Dan Slott (Amazing Spider-Man) sit down to meet fans and sign autographs. This is your chance to meet some of the most influential writers and artists in Marvel history!

(more…)

Watch CBS News Videos Online
Once you get past a disturbing R-rated film about a naked woman whose shower attacks her with a radioactive coating, you’ll see Hugh Jackman telling Katie Couric a bit about a possible fifth outing for him as Wolverine. We also learn that Katie doesn’t do comic book, but that’s not a big surprise. Video taken from Couric’s new @katiecouric web show. You can watch the whole interview with Jackman here.

Thanks to CBS for the link.

Courtesy of Jody LeHeup and Arune Singh at Marvel, here’s an EXCLUSIVE preview of some pages from STRANGE TALES #2, the second issue of Marvel’s anthology of Marvel’s greatest heroes as drawn by indie comics’ greatest stars.

This time out we’ve got Max Cannon’s “Unfortunate Three” and Jim Rugg’s marvel-loa-s “Brother Voodoo”!

STRANGE TALES #2 goes on sale tomorrow. Contributors include Peter Bagge, Jacob Chabot, R. Kikuo Johnson, Jim Rugg, Jonathan Hickman, Max Cannon, Matt Kindt, Michael Kupperman and Tony Millionaire.

by Paul O’Brien

Marvel’s big project for August was the relaunch of the Ultimate imprint, with the first issues of the unwieldily titled ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS and ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN both reaching stores. There’s also the first issue of the MARVELS PROJECT miniseries, and the “Utopia” crossover between UNCANNY X-MEN and DARK AVENGERS. Plus, the familiar army of Dark Reign titles.

As usual, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market, beating DC by 44% to 36% in unit share, and a rather closer 40% to 33% in dollars.

Thanks as always to ICv2.com and Milton Griepp for allowing us to use these figures.

2.  CAPTAIN AMERICA: REBORN
08/04  Captain America #30  -  38,464
08/05  Captain America #8   -  51,842
08/06  —
08/07  Captain America #29  -  83,781
=====
08/08  Captain America #41  -  85,035  (  +7.2%)
09/08  Captain America #42  -  75,574  ( -11.1%)
10/08  Captain America #43  -  72,405  (  -4.2%)
11/08  Captain America #44  -  75,493  (  +4.3%)
12/08  Captain America #45  -  71,186  (  -5.7%)
01/09  Captain America #46  -  73,184  (  +2.8%)
02/09  Captain America #47  -  62,850  ( -14.1%)
03/09  Captain America #48  -  62,108  (  -1.2%)
04/09  Captain America #49  -  63,874  (  +2.8%)
05/09  Captain America #50  -  72,708  ( +13.8%)
06/09  Captain America #600 - 123,152  ( +69.4%)
07/09  Captain America #601 -  87,844  ( -28.7%)
07/09  Reborn #1 of 5       - 193,142  (+119.9%)
08/09  Reborn #2 of 5       - 125,366  ( -35.1%)
                               6 mnth  ( +99.5%)
                               1 year  ( +47.4%)
                               2 year  ( +49.6%)
                               3 year  (   — )
                               4 year  (+141.8%)
                               5 year  (+225.9%)

That’s pretty good. REBORN was always going to see a big second issue drop after the huge sales of its first issue. But even after that drop, it still outsells CAPTAIN AMERICA #600, and it’s miles ahead of the book’s usual sales. When you bear in mind that this issue is effectively CAPTAIN AMERICA #603, these are really excellent numbers. There are four covers on this issue, including three 1:25 variants, but that doesn’t really detract from the numbers.
(more…)

Marvel and AniBoom, the online social network for animation, is launching a motion comics contest with a first prize of $10,000.

Marvel is teaming up with Aniboom to give you the chance to transform some of their greatest stories into Motion Comics and propel the comic book experience into uncharted territory! Take the pages of fan-favorites Hulk vs. Wolverine and Nova and bring them to life, combining the images, audio, and scripts provided by Marvel plus your own imagination and artistic expertise. For the past 70 years, Marvel has been the hallmark for innovation and risk-taking in the comic book industry, providing some of the most famous characters in the history of comic book publishing. Now it’s time for you to join Marvel and Aniboom in changing the way we experience comics by bringing them to life!

Johanna Draper Calrson has a more cynical view:

There are also one or two wildcard finalists, picked by the judges, “who independently complete their original submission.” So even if you don’t win any money, you can still work for Marvel for free! Isn’t that great? In that way, it’s typical of these contests — the company gets a lot for not very much money (in their eyes), one or a handful of lucky fans get a token payment in exchange for losing all rights, and most of the entrants just gave away their work for nothing. But so long as you know what you’re getting into… I’m told digital sharecropping is the way things work online now. And really, what are most people going to do with a partially completed Marvel motion comic anyway?

He’s pretty good.

You can see more of Rivera’s art and some process posts, at his blog.

ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOOSE. Last week, Jack Kirby’s four children filed notices of copyright termination for 45 characters . The LA Times has details. This is the same legal maneuver that the Siegel family employed to get back their half of the Superman copyright. Notices were sent to Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, suggesting that the 45 characters include many already being made into successful movie franchises.

Kirby, of course, co-created the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and hundreds more of Marvel’s 5000 characters. Copyright termination allows creators to apply for copyright reassignment after the term of the original contract runs out.
Under copyright law, creators and co-creators can seek to regain copyrights they previously assigned to a company 56 years after first publication and can give notice of their intentions to do so up to 10 years before that.

Kirby’s children would be eligible to claim their father’s share of the copyright of the Fantastic Four in 2017, while the Hulk would come up in 2018 and X-Men in 2019. The copyrights would then run for 39 more years before expiring, after which the characters would enter the public domain under current law.
The Kirby family is being represented by lawyer Marc Toberoff, who also handles the Siegel case. In Hollywood, he is known as a relentless litigator — he also represented the creator of The Dukes of Hazzard in a successful claim against Warner Bros.

Of course there’s a lot to be written and discussed about this. Jack Kirby spent many of his later years trying to get his ART back from Marvel, and he felt that he was not fairly compensated for his creations for years. It also casts a shadow over Disney’s recent acquisition of Marvel, although a Disney spokesperson said “The notices involved are an attempt to terminate rights seven to 10 years from now and involve claims that were fully considered in the acquisition.”

We’ll have a bit more on this later, but in the meantime, Marc-Oliver Frisch considers how appropriate it is that this news broke on what would have been the late Steve Gerber’s 62nd birthday. (Kirby and Gerber collaborated on DESTROYER DUCK.)

AND, Jeff Trexler reports on the latest in the Siegel/Superman case, including the potentially huge news that the presiding judge is retiring in a few months.