Publishers

CBR has a nice roundtable on creator-owned comics that rounds up Robert Kirkman, Mark Millar, and Steve Niles. Since they are all "strongly for" the piece doesn't really ignite any banter, but it does allow many long, entertaining manifestos. For instance, how Millar terrorized Alan Moore when he was a teen.

In order to view this both impressive and oppressive 3D rendering of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Gotham City one must first allow Nokia—the formerly ascendant Finnish company that was once the world's largest cel phone manufacturer—to tattle to you friends on Facebook every time you look at it AND tell Nokia you like them. Luckily I do like Nokia -- or at least I did like my tiny blue Nokia from 2000 that was my very first cel phone.

Axel Alonso and Tom Brevoort gave a fairly wide-reaching interview to Comic Book Resources on the topic of the "Marvel Now" relaunch. It jumps around a bit, but does get some more information out into the public and comes straight from the horses mouth. Let's parse it a little.

Joe Kubert continues to be pretty active over at DC. Currently inking his son, Andy, on Before Watchmen: Nite Owl, Joe's going to be having his own anthology at DC. Joe Kubert Presents is slated to have a six issue run, debuting on Halloween. Joining Kubert for the anthology are Brian Buniak and Sam Glanzman.

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.

Congrats to creators Fred van Lente and Ryan Dunleavy.

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

Concerned that Comic-Con International won't have some awesome comics? IDW announces their convention exclusives!

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.

Enough Marvel news for today. Valiant has slipped us a 5-page preview for the second issue of their surprisingly dark teen psychic book, Harbinger. Looks like the alternate cover gives us a peek at the new Harbinger uniform. Regarding the first page (and the extent to which this is a really dark take on the original) -- the young lady is our hero's early childhood crush and he sort of... gave her an attitude adjustment.

Those guys at Marvel are crafty. They've been scheming their way out of bad trends for years now. First it was showing you could successfully raise prices on your bestselling titles (though the gleam may be coming off that one). Then when things started tanking hard, they manufactured AVX and structured it in such a way that it guaranteed huge numbers and hype. Credit where credit is due, AVX _has_ taken off since then, but Marvel's structure built in a failsafe for it. And now, their latest construction: The Neverending Relaunch.

Three new titles. A relaunch/reboot/facelift/makeover for the Marvel Universe. Hickman. Bendis. Remender. Wolverine, Spider-Man, Hulk, Cable and.... Jean Grey? We're going to have to really get in-depth with these new Marvel titles, you guys.