HYPE!

Tony Daniel had an odd hook early in his Detective Comics: the Joker having had his face cut off. The clown prince of crime disappeared into the wind, most likely in need of a face transplant (such things _do_ exist). His reappearance has been anticipated, but not fulfilled. Daniel announces he's leaving Detective, and what does issue for a teaser?

Famed webcomic Penny Arcade and Cryptozoic are putting out their first periodical comic in the shape of THE LOOKOUTS, a six-issue miniseries by writer Ben McCool and artist Robb Mommaerts. Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik provides some alternative art such as that seen below. The comic will be available digitally starting next week and in print August 29th.

If you're under 35 or so, you might not remember when Comico was a major player in the comics scene. Back in the mid-80s, they debuted Grendel, Mage and The Elementals (Bill Willingham's original superhero saga, effectively lost to modern readers due to some ownership problems... yes, Willingham was also the artist on that). It was all going pretty well until they tried their hand at newsstand distribution and the company ended up changing hands by 1990.

Archer & Armstrong will be the latest Valiant book getting the revival treatment. The original A&A was a Barry Windsor-Smith book. It was also a book with a sense of humor about itself. An immortal of slovenly bent and an uptight martial artist. Yes, this was the comics version of a buddy movie.

This weekend it's the 30th annual HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC. Wow 30 years! Not too many shows have that kind of heritage, but Shelton Drum's show has now settled down into the so-much-fun I-can't-wait-to-see-everyone good time con experience. We'll be quite busy with THREE panels as follows:

Valiant has released the following line with this image: "Are you different? Meet Faith Herbert this September, only in Harbinger #4."

By Todd Allen

--I learned something new today. Remember how Watchmen started out as a treatment for the Charlton characters DC had purchased? Come to find out out, DC didn't purchase the rights to all the Charlton characters and Dynamite now has the rights to Peter Cannon/Thunderbolt. As in, the prototype for Watchmen's Ozymandias.

You may have seen the ad here on The Beat, but just to explain what's going on, Viper Comics has made WORLD WAR HACK free to read via iTunes for 24 hours only.

There are some comics that really should have digital editions. American Flagg! is a 15 minutes into the future classic of dystopian (not _quite_ cyberpunk) science fiction that put Howard Chaykin into the spotlight with First Comics in the early 1980s. A political satire featuring military industrial complex taking over, government regulation of cable television, the outlawing of sports (leading to an underground basketball league), subliminal messages, a talking cat,some Nazis, and a fair amount of sex, Flagg! is a hugely influential book.

Thun'da is a bit of an oddity from the tail end of the golden age (1952). On the surface, it's a variation on the Tarzan mythos, with a bit of a cold war spin. It only ran for six issues. On the other hand, the first issue was one of legendary painter/illustrator Frank Frazetta's comic projects. It also was tapped for a movie serial starring Buster Crabbe. According to comics.org, Gardner Fox was the scripter on the first issue, adding a little most historical flavor to it.

Dynamite has landed a new comics license in Pathfinder. Pathfinder, if you're not current on role-playing games, is a sort of spin-off of Dungeons & Dragons. Essentially, the D&D 3.5 rule set is available for licensing via a "Game System License" and Pathfinder jumps off from that point. Tor talks about Pathfinder as being like D&D "3.75" and an alternative to the latest rule revisions to the mother ship.

The Freedom Fighters don't appear to have formed in the "New 52" DC universe yet, but darned if Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray aren't hovering over the characters. Palmiotti & Gray wrote the pre-relaunch Freedom Fighters comics, the post-relaunch The Ray and now will be writing Phantom Lady. Not just Phantom Lady, either. Freedom Fighter alumni Dollman will also be part of what appears to be a fairly major reworking of the characters.