Comics

As The Big Day approaches, DC is putting out more information on its massive reboot. Newsarama has an addendum to the retailer FAQ that went out some weeks ago.

Based on what we know of publishing data, August 8th, 1961 was the day FANTASTIC FOUR #1 arrived on newsstands. Tom Brevoort sent out a birthday tweet. Although there's talk of boycotts and justified anger over Marvel's shoddy treatment of some of its greatest talent over the years, we should still mark this day. Pairing the protean storytelling of Ditko and Kirby with the breezy populism of Stan Lee created some of the greatest adventure comics that have ever been, and we suspect they'll be read for another 50 years.

Fresh off his Raiders of the Lost Ark/Popeye mashup, Chuck Forsman is mixing Jaws with Peanuts.. Prints are available -- collect the whole set!

Over on his blog, Norwegian superstar Jason has revealed the front and back covers for October's JASON CONQUERS AMERICA, a 32-page tribute to all things Jason:

This is so cool. Nick Abadzis writes to remind us that his strips for the 25th Anniversary of Big Planet Comics has ended: a series of gorgeous alternate endings to his GN LAIKA, about the dog who went into space ... and never came back. Four strips are up here, with tributes to "Stan and Jack (Stan referring to both the Man and Kubrick), and several iterations of how the story could've turned out." The final episode definitely calls out for a sequel/spin-off.

Marvel just sent out another one of its mystery teaser campaigns, with the above graphic and the tag "Coming in November 2011." Of late the FF has of course been renamed and renumbered Fantastic Force, in the wake of Johnny Storm's death. However, there had been some speculation that Marvel wouldn't pass up the opportunity to publish FANTASTIC FOUR #600 in what would have been the original numbering. Since two issues are shipping in October, the timing is right. Or it could be the return of Johnny, aka the Human Torch.

Tyler Page (Nothing Better, Stylish Vittles) has a new webcomic called Raised on Ritalin - A Medicated Memoir and just a few panels will give you an idea of what it's about.

A new Cup O' Joe with Marvel's Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada reveals many things, including more about the origin of MIles Morales, and the fact that Quesada has been commissioned by the actual President of the United States for a piece of art. But it also contains an explanation of what has vexed many of late: Marvel's spoilerific PR in major media. For instance the story of the new dark-skinned Spider-Man broke on Tuesday inUSA Today, spoiling the story with its ubiquity before the issue in question came out. However, says Quesada, there really isn't any other way to do it:

WOMANTHOLOGY, the huge collection of comics by women succeeded in meeting its Kickstarter goals. In fact, it exceeded them by some bit, raising $109,301 in 30 days. The original goal was $25,000. Womanthology had some fantastic premiums to get people to pledge -- including contributions from Kevin Smith, Neil Gaiman, Jim Lee, and tons more. But thats still a crazy amount of money. Over 2000 people pledged, 433 of them between $65 and $100.

In a rather surprising turn of events, New York's MoCCA Festival has announced their 2012 dates -- and not only are they a change from previously announced dates, but it's the same weekend -- April 27-28 -- as Stumptown Festival, the alt-comix festival held each year in Portland. The Stumptown dates were announced months ago, so the change comes as a surprise. As one exhibitor who forwarded the letter told us, in previous years MoCCA and Stumptown were a week apart, which was hard enough, but now the already small pool of indie comics publishers and creators are going to have to skip one or the other.

If you're a Carl Barks collector, Heritage Auctions is selling a ton of great stuff, including autographed comics, correspondence, and, at the very high end some of Barks incredibly collectible -- and expensive -- oil paintings, like "Red Sails in the Sunset" which starts at $30,000. There's also this Barks Treasury Gold Limited Edition with Signed Certificate #320/1000 (Applewood Books, 1997) made out to "Steve."

This afternoon, Bill Willingham tweeted some typically frank thoughts about working on superhero comics -- in recent years, he wrote JSA for DC, and before that Shadowpact, a group book featuring several of DC's more supernatural characters...and Detective Chimp. And as many have said before him, working with recent brands of editorial direction tended to mitigate against spontaneity: