Publishers

This new Image book from writer Jimmy Palmiotti and artist Artiz Eiguren looks plenty arresting, but the cover by Sas Christian is what will claw its way into your nightmares. The standalone graphic novel goes on sale in February.

A nice preview of the Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan version of the Cimmerian brawler.

Bon Alimagno is leaving Marvel to take a job with software company The Apollo Group. At Marvel Alimagno worked closely with Senior Vice President, Business Affairs & Talent Management David Bogart on freelancer scheduling and handling. He was formerly the editor at Harris Comics, overseeing the adventures of Vampirella.

I'd been meaning to write something about the new Shade maxi-series, but James Robinson made this a higher priority when he tweeted "If sales don't improve it may be cancelled before the 12 issues are done."

JOHN CARTER is coming in March, and several stills have just been released. From EW, there's a picture of John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) fighting a giant white ape. Director Andrew Stanton told EW:

In January Kevin Keller, Riverdale's popular gay teen, is getting married, and Here's the cover to LIFE WITH ARCHIE #16 which leads in to Kevin's monthly series. According to the pr, "Since arriving on the scene last year, Kevin has enjoyed a meteoric rise to becoming one of Riverdale's most popular teens, graduating from guest-star to mini-series to his upcoming starring title in the span of just over a year. Not only is he a hit in comic sales, he's fitting right in with the gang at Riverdale High having been elected class president plus representing his new school in a TV Game Show "Witmasters" and winning!" You might want to ponder this for a minute -- a humorous soap opera comics that has stood in for American normality for over 75 years introduced a gay character who is now popular enough to get his own series. And get married in it. America, you are okay after all.

We're not sure if this Russian Avengers teaser was ever found to be "official" or not, but it doesn't matter, because artist Kevin Bolk has given it a gender swap, with the male characters showing the kind of twisting butt-and-face pose that is usually reserved for The Black Widow. It's called Avengers Booty Ass-emble :

I'm in Iowa for the holidays, so I thought I'd drop in to the local (brand new) Books-A-Million and see what kind of comics they had after they joined Barnes & Noble in removing the boycotting the 100 DC graphic novels made exclusive to the Kindle. There were a lot more Marvel books there than DC and, of course, no Grant Morrison Batman or Batman: Hush or... uh, oh. What's that on the shelf?

Marvel is going through some odd times, of late. Cancellations, accelerations, and a complete focus on the bottom line seem to be the order of the day. Axel Alonso and Tom Brevoort have been talking.

“Venom by Rick Remender Vol. 1” is not the flashiest title ever conceived for a book (pun intended). There’s a trend of breaking up titles runs by creator. Over at Marvel, you’ve got “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis,” “Moon Knight by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev,” and so forth. Over at DC, You’ve got “Tales of the Batman” volumes for Gene Colan and Don Newton. I suppose it’s good for branding the work of a particular creator on a series, though it’s the rare title like Moon Knight that’s spreading the love between both writers and artists. We’ll see how long this naming trend sticks around and whether more heavily promoted storylines are collected under the creators’ names (as of this writing, it’s Spider-Man: Spider Island, not Dan Slott’s Spider-Man Vol. *.*”) Venom by Rick Remender has Remender on writing chores, with the art split between Tony Moore and Tom Fowler, and a variety of inkers on Moore. I pulled this volume out of the library on a lark and it turned out to be a much deeper read than I was expecting.

Spider-Man on Broadway (No, not Times Square, Herald Square!) Spider-Man and friends at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! 2011, 1987, 1989! And look closely for one of the first ever webcams!

This season's graphic novel offerings from Random House!