Comics

It was quietly announced to retailers yesterday that Marvel will be changing the all their $2.99 titles to the "self-cover" format, starting in April. "Self-cover" meaning that the paper of the cover is the same as the paper of the internal pages. Truth be told, this sounds like a bigger change than it is.

"Speak of the Devil and he shall appear." On Wednesday, we were discussing how books were shipping on time, but there were a lot of fill-in artists. Now it's Friday and DC has announced two more "Guest Artists."

The teasing is over and here's the revamped Valiant's launch lineup. The team on Bloodshot is Duane Swierczynski (Immortal Iron Fist, Birds of Prey) and artists Manuel Garcia (Checkmate, Spider Man: Breakout) & Arturo Lozzi (Immortal Weapons), while Archer & Armstrong is being handled by writer Fred Van Lente (Amazing Spider-Man, Hulk: Season One) and artist Clayton Henry (Uncanny X-Men).

Although the video is not embeddable (that we can see), Scholastic sponsored this chat with Jeff Smith, Kazu Kibuishi, and Raina Telgemeier which was streamed to classrooms across the nation. If I was a kid in school, cartoonists drawing pictures is what I would definitely like seeing in class.

Following on what seems to have been a successful run with the Ultimate line, starting in June, Marvel will include a digital download code with ALL its books selling for $3.99. Marvel's moving ahead in this regard is interesting, since DC's John Rood has indicated that redemption of their combo packs has been "astonishingly low." In contrast David Gabriel says Marvel's program has been a big success.

Another mystery team!

The most eye-popping adaptation of Burroughs ever, and perhaps the most naked Martians you will ever see.

BY CASEY BURCHEY -- Last summer, DC inaugurated a series of artist-centric hardcover Batman collections with Tales of the Batman: Gene Colan, Volume 1, which highlighted the moody work Colan contributed to Batman and Detective Comics in the early 1980s. Since then, DC has also released similar volumes featuring stories drawn by Don Newton and Marshall Rogers.

The marvelous Gabrielle Bell has just announced her new book, VOYEUR, to be published by Uncivilized Books later this year. She announced it in comics form so here's the money panel:

As first noted in the comics blogosphere by Graeme McMillan, Marvel's proposed KISS KISS BANG BANG and ROUTE 666 Crossgen revivals have been shelved indefinitely. Word came via Tom Brevoort's rolling press conference, i.e. Formspring. Graeme wrote:

Based on this teaser, one infers that there is a X-men wedding to come in this June's ASTONISHING by Marjorie Liu and Mike Perkins, which has already been hyped as a much talked about issue. So who will tie the knot? We're not up on current X-Men mythology and can't hazard a guess but popular internet speculation is guessing Northstar and Kyle will tie the knot, making this the first blow for marriage equality in the Marvel U. Another gay couple, Hulkling and Wiccan, just kissed, perhaps paving the way.

Marvel is releasing more covers for their epic fisticuffs battle, and here's AVENGERS #27 , written by Brian Michael Bendis with art and cover by Walt Simonson. In this issue, as the battle rages...an Avenger betrays the team!