Publishers

Aliens! Star Wars! Axe Cop! Milk & Cheese! Avatar! Mignola! Pratt! Minara! Powell! Clamp! Vess!

Well, DC has had a spectacular Fall so far, launching the New 52 comic books.  But what of their strong graphic novel line?  What's new (and old) on bookshelves this season? Quite a bit!  Absolute editions, omnibuses, deluxe editions, licensed products, and the usual titles.

Mark Twain and Flannery O'Connor! Estonia and the Andes! Armed Gardens and Treasure Island! Joe Kubert, Tony Millionaire, Jack Davis! Old Comedians and Young Romance! And Gahan Wilson's Nuts!

The world will not get to see this awesome comic, alas. Via Twitter, Nick Spencer confirms that a planned miniseries about a teenaged Victor Von Doom by Becky Cloonan and himself will not be coming out. "

I see word is out about VICTOR VON DOOM. Trust me, no one is more bummed about this than I am. Really proud of the scripts and hope to get to work with @beckycloonan sooner rather than later.

" The first issue had been planned to ship next week.

Converse and DC have teamed for the DC Comics x Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Hi Collection,, which features high top sneakers based on Batman, Superman, the Flash and the Joker. We like! More pics in the link. A DC comics poster comes with each shoe purchase.

Slate has a preview of the autobio material in the upcoming Lynda Barry collection Everything Vol. 1. More in link.

Marvel is committing to making virtually all its comics available digitally day and date, accoridng to a story at Gizmodo. The plan will roll out over the next six months, with "print and digital for nearly all comics will be same day release by April 2012" according to Marvel's Ryan Penagos on Twitter. The books will shift over as they reach new "jumping on points" meaning the roll-out will be staggered. However the adults only MAX line and licensed books, inclduing the Stephen King adaptations, will NOT go to the DaD system.

Wow, the number of women working in the New 52 just jumped 33%...or something. We're no good at percentages. Anyway, Nicola Scott will be filling in for Jesus Merino on Superman issues 3, 5 and 6 of the George Pérez written book, working from Pérez's layouts. It's definitely a fill-in in many ways. Merino will be the regular penciller from isues 7 on, although Perez is leaving the books. And Scott is pencilling a JSA book, written by James Robinson, with an indeterminate launch date SUPERMAN #3 goes on sale November 23.

Fantagraphics Books has posted their releases for early 2012 and a link to their catalog to see for yourself, but here are some very tasty highlights:

We meant to post this yesterday but somehow it got lost in the shuffle. This fall Robot Chicken — the toy-motion animation satire that uses lookalikes of your favorite childhood toys to enact grisly jokes — is doing an entire 15-minute episode devoted to DC comics. Recently, Geoff Johns, a past contributor to the show, linked to the trailer — which is NSFW, we might add. Robot Chicken is animated in the super bad style, and it's ugly all the way, but with its laser-cutting, bloody wrist stumps and cock ring humor, this is one of the most disturbing things we've ever seen. And to think that DC used to burn books just because it was suggested that Superman might drink a beer.

Not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story, DC is collecting FLEX MENTALLO: Man of Muscle Mystery in one of those Deluxe Editions that will look nice on your shelf next to other Grant Morrison/Quitely classics like We3 or All Star Superman. You'll recall that FLEX MENTALLO is one of the seminal works in the Morrison oeuvre—many of Morrison's most important themes found their most cogent articulation here— but a collection was long held in the vault due to past legal problems. But now it's coming your way in all its glory, and it has an awesome new cover by Quitely. It's all good.

Ruwan Jayatilleke has been promoted to SVP Associate Publisher at Marvel, where he previously held the title of SVP, development and planning. Jayatilleke started has new job yesterday, tweeting: Over the years, Jayatilleke has spearheaded a number of important initiatives at Marvel, including the Stephen King partnership, the Halo GN and tie-ins, and a number of digital and "motion comics" projects, including "N", the Stephen King-based digital comic.