Publishers

CHEW, the cibopathic comedy smash comic by John Layman and Rob Guillory has been picked up for development at Showtime, and a script by Terri Hughes Burton and Ron Milbauer has been purchased. It's being planned as a half-hour comedy; Stephen Hopkins will direct as well as executive produce.

Intensive lab scene accompanied by anxious music? Check. Unsubtle reference to Avengers franchise in title? Check. The line "You don't know when to quit, do you?" Check.

Now this is kind of interesting. Avatar, publisher of some of the greatest writers in comics, like Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and so on, is switching distributors from Diamond to...BOOM!? Wait, BOOM! is a distributor? Not really, but they have their own distributor deal with Simon & Schuster for the US and HarperCollins for Canada. Avatar will be tagging along on BOOM!'s truck route for a unique partnership. We had the chance to chat informally with several Avatar personnel about this move at C2E2 -- and it's definitely a good one for them. Moore and (to a lesser extent) Ellis are perennial bookstore bestsellers, so being able to hop on that bandwagon should definitely help their trade program. Although not noted by anyone, really, Avatar significantly slowed their trade collection release schedule over the last few months; this deal enables them to get it going again.

Would you like Wolverine with that soy vanilla misto? Ubiquitous coffee chain Starbucks is expandingthe offerings in its Starbucks Digital Network, which allows latte-lovers to read free digital content in its stores. New offerings will include ESPN, The Economist, The New York Times, and Marvel Digital Comics.:

Marvel accidentally left these two books out of their solicitations, but any excuse to run some Sean Phillips art makes us happy.

The plot thickens, as Disney plans to expand it's kids magazine publishing business with new magazines featuring Phineas and Ferb, Cars 2, Thor and Captain America, Sam Thielman reports.

The pilot for the Wonder Woman revamp just started shooting, and EW has revealed the first still of star Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night LIghts)...

A few months ago, comiXology announced its Digital Storefront Affiliate plan which would allow comics shops to sell digital comics -- the implementation plan is different from Diamond's, but the intent is the same -- to allow storefronts to make money off digital comics. Now, DC and several other publishers (Image Comics (including Shadowline and Top Cow), BOOM! Studios, and Dynamite Entertainment) have anounced they will be joining the initiative. PR below, but more news on this tomorrow live from the Diamond Retail summit.

DC is getting into the festive spirit with a green-focused sa

And to finish up our little Irish-themed section, Colleen Doran offers a preview of Gone to Amerikay, the graphic novel she's been working on for the last two years. It's written by Eisner nominated author Derek McCulloch, with colors by Jose Villarubia -- the final book will come out sometime in 2012 from Vertigo.

Doran writes:

2003 wasn't so very long ago but in many ways it was a completely different age for comics. Nü Marvel was all the rage as comics were climbing out of the sales tailspin of the late '90s, and Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada reigned supreme at Marvel. Jemas in particular went off on some strange tangents. The Ultimate line may have been his signature achievement, but there were lots that aren't remembered so fondly, or at all, like Marvell -- a sort of satire of superheroes written by Jemas himself -- and Trouble -- a photo-covered "Gossip Girl" wanna-be that featured teenaged, randy versions of Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Hardly typical Marvel fare.

It seems there is a new sheriff in DC's digital town, and she goes by the name Molly Merrell. This new member of DC Online has just delivered a smackdown on rowdy posters at DC's Source blog: