Comics

A vigilant reader sent us this scan of an ad in the current edition of Women's Wear Daily, the bible of the fashion trade. The ad, for Green Lantern licensing opportunities, ran in a previews section for the upcoming 2010 MAGIC Marketplace, "the preeminent trade event in the international fashion industry." Obviously, Warner Bros. has BIG, BIG plans for Green Lantern licensing -- and based on the number of folks we see walking the streets of NYC in GL T-shirts, we'd say they might just be on to something.

Studios and the digital comics provider Graphic.ly have announced an exclusive agreement, Graphic.ly's Micah Baldwin explains in a newsletter: We are excited that Archaia has decided to work with us exclusively! Over the past couple of months, PJ and I have had a lot of conversations about the benefits of presenting Archaia's books digitally to a community of passionate fans. We will be able to do interesting and innovative things around story lines, creators and characters.

MK Reed writes to point us to a new website, SAVE APATHEA! which will be serializing her upcoming First Second graphic novel Americus, which is due out in late 2011. It's described as the story of "Neil Barton, a teenager growing up in Oklahoma, and his fight to keep his favorite fantasy series, The Chronicles of Apathea Ravenchilde, in his public library." Reed (a sometime Beat contributor) writes and Jonathan Hill provides art. The first chapter was previously published in Papercutter #7. News pages will go up Monday-Wednesday-Friday.

Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. #3 variant cover by Dustin Weaver reveals an intriguing new spelling for the name of physics god Sir Isaac Newton. However a peek at the promo copy for the issue , while urging us to "discover the secrets" of the man who popularized gravity, also allows us to discover one of Marvel's more startling secrets:

By Shannon O'Leary, Entertainment Editor<P>

Last week I said I’d turn in a late True Blood Recap after I got back from Comic Con. Last week I hadn’t actually gone to Comic Con yet.   Going to Comic Con this year was not unlike attending The Fall of Saigon. It was a crowded combat zone littered with hundreds of thousands of nerds elbowing each other out of the way so they could get their pop culture freak on until one of them got stabbed in the face with a pen! <P>

I’m not saying it wasn’t fun. I had a blast! But after all that madness, chaos and immersive viral marketing I just don’t have it in me to properly recap the sixth episode of Season Three: I Got A Right To Sing The Blues. Sorry to not live up to my commitments to you, the fang faithful, but I’ve been to war and back and I’m going to save my recapping jujitsu for episode seven on Sunday. What I can do now is tell you a little war story.<P>

Happy anniversary, Shaenon T. Garrity! It was July 31, 2000 that she launched Narbonic, one of the first prominent webcomics by a woman. Since then she's launched several other webcomics, including Skin Horse, won the Lulu of the Year award, worked as an editor and creator in both traditional comics and manga, and become one of the liveliest, most insightful comics commentators on the web. She's a treasure, that's what.

Judge Barbara Crabb has made a decision following the June court appearance by Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane over profits for the characters Dark Ages Spawn, Tiffany and Domina. Gaiman held that these cast-members of the Spawn-i-verse were derivative of Medieval Spawn and Angela (characters that he co-owns, as ruled after the epic 2002 court battle), thus he was entitled to half the profits from these characters. McFarlane held the opposite and had refused to provide information on the profits. Judge Crabb sided with Gaiman, citing the similarity of the characters in a decision (readable here) which shows she spent a lot of time reading up on Spawn:

Via the Village Voice

Via Major Spoilers, the explanation of how, at least in Kevin Smith's world, Batman sometimes pees his pants when things get a little too...

Toby Cypress announces that his long-a-brewing GN, RODD RACER, will have a special edition available at this year's New York Comic Con. Wider release...

Brazilian cartoon maestro Fábio Moon is visiting Portland, OR, and he and Craig Thompson are having a blog war. Art ensues!

The THOR footage shown at Comic-Con has been leaking out all over the place, and far be it from us to link you to a place to see it, as it's being taken down quickly, but in case you can't find it, Splash Page has a blow-by-bow account.