Back when we interviewed Jeffrey Brown about his movie at Sundance, he mentioned an upcoming humor book called Darth Vader and Son that features gentle humor on the topic of Darth as dad to Luke.

Well, he’s now posted some cover sketches on his blog.

And here’s the final cover.

The book is out from Chronicle in May.

Cheryl Lynn has the scoop:

In a stellar move that has stunned the comics community and has quieted critics who have claimed that DC isn’t making proper strides in regards to ethnic and racial diversity, DC has released information concerning the final prequel project in the powerful Before Watchmen arsenal. Newsstand Boy by creators Eric Wallace and Scott McDaniel was announced this morning by DC’s co-publisher Dan Didio.

[Thanks, Martha Cornog]

Recently, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich declared his support for the idea of a moon colony. Even more recently, he was roundly mocked for this even though manned space flight is one of the glories of American history. Wired asked space enthusiast Warren Elliswhat he thought of the plan:

I get the impression he didn’t really get warmed up until he reached Florida. Speaker Gingrich, as a “historian,” will be well aware that Nixon announced the Space Shuttle program to replace the closing Apollo program in order to retain Florida and keep the aerospace industry on his side. With Shuttle closing, it’s the most obvious thing in the world to walk into Florida and say, “I will give you all the money to build stuff.” You’ll probably see him do the same in California.

Ells offers much more on space and Earth’s relationship to the same in the interview.

The ruckus prompted cartoonist Sam Henderson to rerun his own thoughts on moon colonization utilization non humans.

The internet FTW once again.

Via Splash Page.

Chocolate Apple 1991-2011, a manga released at the just passed amateur manga show Comiket — which drew some 500,000 people — presents the author’s heartfelt appreciation of the late Steve Jobs and his creations, while portraying Jobs as a cute Japanese girl.

According to Crunchyroll, where this was spotted, this gender swap is quite common in Japan.

A book on farts illustrated by Lisa Hanawalt, with an attached soundboard?

Where do I sign up?

Via Funny or Die, the ecological wonderland of ’80s TBS is recalled.

Chris Illuminati at TheFW marshals the evidence, and it is quite compelling.

You’ve probably already thought of most of these, but Funny or Die has put them all in one place in a useful short film.

The complete image of the new Johns-Lee rebooted JLA has surfaced (apparently at IGN) and it’s clear that we have a “Big Seven” of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. Most of the new costumes involved higher collars. Superman has a new logo and no trunks over his tights. There are lots of other details, but when we mentioned earlier that these characters looked about the same, we meant it — these are tweaks on the traditional (Super Friends, licensing) looks for these characters, not huge changes.

Although, as several online pundits are pointing out, Green Lantern seems to be overcompensating for something his giant green crotch gun.

Given all the talk of late about geek girls, this Onion story from 2004 seems pretty dated:

Osley attended the convention from Friday to Sunday, freely and confidently mingling with the 85 percent male crowd at the Hilton Burbank Airport and Convention Center.

“From the moment she walked in the door, Paulette was the object of admiring glances,” Martin said. “Everywhere she went, men were awkwardly trying to make conversation with her, flirting with her using Farscape dialogue, and inviting her to season-finale-watching parties in their hotel suites. Although she only came in 14th in the trivia contest, her adorable blush, her nervous giggle, and the fact that she was female earned her many admirers.”

NY Mag’s Vulture blog goes where no man had dared: How Vulnerable Are Superheroes’ Crotches? A Vulture Investigation, providing a detailed look at how the Magnuttos have been protected in various superhero films. Some — Night Owl, Thor — keep everything in one iron-clad package, but others — Spider-Man, Green Hornet — just leave the family jewels sitting out there. Tsk tsk tsk.

Famed comic book spoofer Rob Granito has finally answered some direct questions, and didn’t get paid to do so, which is awesome. . But the origin of such things as Jay Didillo, Granito’s nonexistent collaborator on a nonexistent DC book, is strangely prosaic:

Yeah, again this is something else I didn’t explain when I should have, and it’s blown up in my face! I met an editor at a Con a few months back, and he gave me his card, and as best as I can remember, his name sounded like that. He said he was looking for up and coming artists for a Batman book about different eras of Batman or whatever, and he would keep me in mind. It happened! I just lost his card and can’t remember the other specific details, but nobody can prove it didn’t happen. I’m sorry my memory isn’t absolutely perfect but I meet a lotta people at shows.

This guy and Newt Gingrich should team up for a new Straight Talk Express! Gingrich could explain how talking to the press rattles him badly, and Granito can unprove things that also never didn’t happen. Also. But he does contend that “I’m not running for office or something.” and there’s no fun in that, alas.

This is so not comics, but the Final Three go at it tonight and we’d been saving up some notes. We started watching American Idol a few years ago because we felt the need to pay attention to at least one thing that wasn’t nerdy but instead reflected the more mundane and/or inane side of culture — something universal, just so when we had to hang out with normal people we wouldn’t be entirely defenseless. Plus former judges Simon and Kara talked about music a little and it was interesting. But that was then. This season’s judges, Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez excel at nothing but praise, blather and administering something called the “amazing” scale:

1 amazing = about ready for Rocktime Karaoke at that place down behind the mall.
2 amazings = will someday star in a YouTube video
3 amazings = talent

Actually we did have some kind of comics metaphor in this season’s AI — when everything is amazing…nothing is. (Paging Bob Parr.) As much as we try to be egalitarian in this comics world, we do it no favors by letting sentimentality get the better of us and praising substandard work because we feel bad. That actually hurts the GOOD work. That’s not elitism — it’s common sense.

Not that anyone cares — ratings are up, JLO is the world’s most beautiful woman, and Tyler has a bestselling book. Exposure works!

Anyway, on to the contestants.

We were a little surprised when James Durbin was voted off last week. Unlike every other contestant, he didn’t care how he sounded and just sang with emotion. Unfortunately this led to blubbering like a walrus half the time. Plus, in his first appearance it was mentioned that he had both Tourette’s Syndrome and high-function autism. The first one was very much in evidence with the funny faces and squintables he was always having. If he won, it would have been one wild ride.

So on to those who might win.

Haley Reinhart — 13-1

The one person who the judges don’t shower with amazings and beautifuls, probably because she is young and doesn’t really know what she’s doing. She knows how to look pissed, however, as the above still shows. Although a real cutie, America does not like pissy pouty girls who get annoyed when they’ve been judge-f*cked. HOWEVER, last night she did herself solid by doing well on actual non-country songs that people had heard, by Led Zep, Fleetwood Mac and Alanis Morissette,

Lauren Alaina – 7-1

Thank god she’s a country girl! Only 16, Lauren exemplifies the fear and insecurity most of us have when we’re sixteen by not knowing how to take a chance. Mentor Jimmy Iovine rightly nailed her when she didn’t hold the right note in “Unchained Melody” — everyone from Ricky Nelson to Bono knows that “need” is the money note! Nonetheless, Lauren’s non-threatening country demeanor should take her to the final two. She does have a great voice but all three songs last night were total snoozers…to us anyway.

Scotty McCreery – 1-2

Scotty’s winning has been a forgone conclusion ever since he unleashed his smooth country baritone at auditions, even if he does hold the mike like he’s about to blow it, oh so tenderly. At first we were very impressed by this 18-year-old’s poise, standing up for what’s right, and natural talent, but ever since he figured out he was going to win he’s gotten a little unbearable with the country pronunciation that sounds like a parody, and pandering crap like a 9/11 song. But it doesn’t matter — he’s got “it” … true star quality.

After James’ behavior and goofy past (see above) I was impressed at how the behind the scenes info about American Idol is kept so highly classified or at least obfuscated — like the bit about the Idol’s mansion being so haunted that Zak Bagans wanted to investigate — though word is that all anyone found was Taylor Hicks’ career. For Idol junkies, one recent book did break the seal a bit. Former production assistant Justin Buckles has written American Idol Exposeda rare tell-all — the writing is “pitchy” but it does give some idea of the production realities — and petty rivalrys and jealousies — that go into making this amazing, beautiful, amazing show.

ALSO: if you like funny web writing, American Idol recaps seems to bring out the best in people. We are addicted to Richard Lawson at Gawker and Paul F. Tompkins at Vulture.

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There are many Hulks on Twitter — feministhulk, DRUNKHULK, and HIPSTERHULK — but it is only PREPRESS HULK, who rampages into uncontrolled rages when faced with a improper PANTONE number or lo-rez file, that is a hero in the production world.
HULK NEED NAME FOR CLUELESS CUSTOMER WHO HAS PHOTOSHOP, PUBLISHER, OR WORD, FANCIES SELF A “DESIGNER”.

HULK GOES FOR BROKE, ASKS “DESIGNER” FOR BLEEDS, FIX LOW-RES RGB GRAPHICS!!

CUSTOMER DEMAND COLOR ACCURACY!! ANYONE KNOW PANTONE FOR “TAUPE”??

HULK SMASH ALL MICROSOFT PUBLISHER INSTALLS IN WORLD!!

CUSTOMER “IMPUTS” INFO IN WEB FORM, FORGETS TO SEND, BLAMES HULK FOR WEB SITE DESIGN!!

HULK USE ILLUSTRATOR, BUT MISS FREEHAND SOMETIMES!! HOW HULK JOIN SUIT AGAINST ADOBE FOR SMASHING FREEHAND??

Okay, maybe you really have to be a wonk ….but we loves it!