HYPE!

By Steve Morris Subject of one of the most famous X-Men stories ever told and perpetual fear for Jean Grey fans around the World, Marvel...

By Todd Allen OK, I admit it.  That cover graphic of all the super heroes going straight down the toilet cracks me up.  It's also...

By Todd Allen As you may recall, The Boys is winding down soon.  You might be wondering what Garth Ennis is going to be filling...

This is firmly under the HYPE banner since I was a publishing consultant for this project, but Ham Fisher's venerable boxing-themed comic strip character has been updated to an MMA-fighter for IDW's Joe Palooka, the brain storm of boxing announcer Joe Antonacci, along with Mike Bullock, Fernando Peniche and Matt Triano. In the story, Joe Palooka is a discredited MMA fighter who travels the world desperately trying to clear his name while fighting to earn a spot in the legendary “Legion of Combat,” worldwide fight series.

Pop culture business news site ICv2 has announced the ICv2 Conference on Comics and Digital II to be held in conjunction with this year's New York Comic-Con. It will be held on WEDNESDAY, October 10th,1:00 to 5:00 p.m. -- in previous years it was held on the Thursday prior to the Con but NYCC is essentially a 4 day show now. As in previous years, The Beat is a sponsor of this event. Here's the line-up of panels, with speakers to be announce. All of them sound extremely interesting.

Valiant's being a big tease again. I was sent the following graphic with the tagline, "Shadows fall this November."

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."