DC

There's a new team on Detective Comics and it probably wasn't who you were expecting. New artist, Jason Fabok, maybe you could have seen him coming. He's filled in on a couple issues of Batman: The Dark Knight and also worked on the recent Batman Annual. You could make an argument he got a quick promotion from designated reliever (while that isn't a formal title in comics, it probably should be) to primary artist. John Layman writing Detective? No, you didn't see that one coming.

Black Lightning is returning to the DC Universe! and blue devil BLACK LIGHTNING IS COMING BACK!

Here in the world of what is laughably called "pop culture journalism" we're all used to a certain breathless acceptance in talent interviews. Staying competitive means getting exclusives and getting exclusives means playing ball. Tough questions are rarely asked, and confrontation is the greatest sin of all. So when you read Watching Watchmen: A Classic Comic’s Classless Return at the Daily Beast, you have to either wince or gasp as things spin out of control.

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?

So, what can we discover when searching DC Comics' trademark filings? Not much...

In a surprise move, Tony Daniel announced his exit from Detective Comics over on his Facebook account. Why is this so surprising? If you look at the May sales estimates, Detective Comics #9 is sitting at 96K copies. Easily over 100K if you factor in UK sales. If you ignore the Batman Annual, it's DC's #4 title. Batman, Incorporated looks to have outsold it by 470 copies in the US, so there's a decent chance it will be DC's #3 title when the July numbers come out. OK, so you do have some "Night of the Owls" boost going on right now. It's been the #5 book for DC most of the time. That's a big change on a pretty successful title.

In a surprise move, Tony Daniel announced his exit from Detective Comics over on his Facebook account. Why is this so surprising? If you look at the May sales estimates, Detective Comics #9 is sitting at 96K copies. Easily over 100K if you factor in UK sales. If you ignore the Batman Annual, it's DC's #4 title. Batman, Incorporated looks to have outsold it by 470 copies in the US, so there's a decent chance it will be DC's #3 title when the July numbers come out. OK, so you do have some "Night of the Owls" boost going on right now. It's been the #5 book for DC most of the time. That's a big change on a pretty successful title.

So now we know that Kindle exclusive is really OVER, as DC has officially announced that DC graphic novels will be available for B&N's Nook. The comics, which include the 100 favorite such as WATCHMEN as well as the new launch of New 52 collections, will be readable in a new "Zoom View" format—which is B&N's version of comiXology's guided view.

A concept artist who worked on BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM has posted some Justice League concept art that could be just an afternoon doodle...or something else? It's definitely a more video-game esque and robust take on the characters. Our guess: something toyetic.

True to their word, DC is launching a followup reader survey, after last fall's New 52 launch survey. John Rood mentioned that any demographic info would only be truly useful as more comparisons were able to be made, and future surveys were promised. And here it is. We tried to take it but got booted out for truthful answers, sadly. (In this case not actually buying any DC comics.) As before there is a fake survey title, ORANGE IVY, to weed out wannabes.

For the full effect you'll want to go right to the site, but this trailer has a lot of dark Bane vs Batman footage and less Catwoman. Any chance this movie will top AVENGERS? Probably not. But it should easily vanquish Spider-Man for #2 comic book movie of the year.

Today's Kindle app update for both iOS and Android has received little notice inside the comics world, but it now includes comics and children's books.