Comics

How on earth did we miss this until now? Ben Towle is putting together The Animal Alphabet Project, drawing of critters by cartooners. Above, the N is for Naked Mole Rat by Gabriel Hardman, below L is for Lynx by Henry Eudy.

Not since Star Trek waffles (I'm not kidding) has a movie had so many unconventional food tie-ins as Captain America: The First Avenger. Clearly this called for a review in the interest of science journalism. So while visiting my parents for the Fourth of July weekend, I decided an expedition into patriotic tie-in food was required and resolved to try and review it all, a project which revealed one vitally important fact - apparently Americans really, really like patriotic donuts.

By Jeff Trexler-- In March 2008, Grant Morrison's homage to Siegel and Shuster appeared in comic shops on the very same day that the Siegel heirs recaptured half the original Superman copyright.  Now Morrison is set to work his shaman's magic once again in the September relaunch of Action #1--and this time, the Siegels could lose everything. Morrison's upcoming Supergods holds the key to understanding why. For an explanation and a sneak preview of Morrison’s new book, click below. A mysterious appeal, Joe Shuster’s super-swastika and the final crisis of the legal multiverse--this one has it all.

In answer to all the questions that retailers -- and a few readers and certainly Beat readers have -- DC has sent out an FAQ on the relaunch/reboot/September to their retailer accounts, with a cover letter by Bob Wayne. It shows great insight into what people are squawking about and gives a good fact sheet on returnability, pricing, digital, and so on. Well be back later with analysis of all this.

DC has launched a subsite for their September relaunch, and at last it has a name The New 52. The site includes the video of DC execs promoting the launch which was widely circulated yesterday, as well as previews of the various titles. It also, as Comics Alliance slyly pointed out, hadn't been properly proofed, as when it went live it included earlier, Earth-4 versions of the creative teams on a number of books:

At the time of her death in May, artist Jeffrey Catherine Jones was the subject of an upcoming documentary, Better Things. Director/producer Maria Cabardo writes to tell us that several minutes of footage will be shown at a panel at Comic-Con:

Take a spin around the week's nerd entertainment news with Shannon O'Leary.

Artist Paolo Rivera recounts an amusing story of how he found himself on Google's Street Viewstanding in front of Jim Hanley's Universe. He adds some interesting tips on how he uses the service as an art reference:

A Facebook page has sprung up to organize a protest march against the new awful designs of the new 52. It seems some folks don't like the new fresh DC designs that are all new:

Seeing as how it was somehow unearthed by Bleeding Cool, there is no way of knowing where this video featuring all of DC's major editorial players save Geoff John talking about the relaunch was created for. It's definitely aimed at consumers, but the actual venue we may never know. Or it may never have been released. The video shows Dan DiDio, Jim Lee, Eddie Berganza, Bob Harras, and special guest star Grant Morrison each uttering the word "new" about 30 times each. Our impressions is that they want us to know that this is a NEW initiative and a NEW way of doing things. It's NEW.

We hadn't seen this formally announced anywhere but we might have missed it: ICAF, the annual meet-up for international comics scholars, will be hosted at CCS this year. The conference will be held September 29-October 1, and spotlight the American Bande Dessineé Society.

Via BOOM!'s mailing list, Chip Mosher has a pretty clear suggestion that shows just how publishers are living on a copy here and a copy there. With DC's massive relaunch coming up a lot of retailer dollars are going to be tied up elsewhere so a book like Roger Langridge's SNARKED needs every little boost: