Publishers

Artist Paolo Rivera was commissioned to create a special poster as a gift for the CAPTAIN AMERICA movie's cast and crew. This is the result:

Thanks to his "pack-ratty" mother, Jim Shooter's two Merry Marvel Marching Society kits from the '60s are intact and in mint condition. The first one included the record with the amazing Bullpen greetings from Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Flo Steinberg, and so on.

The final pieces of the DC relaunch are revealed over at Hero Complex, and #52 is revealed as the Grant Morrison/Rags Morales ACTION COMICS #1. A whole new backstory for Superman is teased -- probably to be spelled out at tomorrow's Jim Lee/Geoff Johns event for the LA Times. Dan DiDio also gives a new big picture statement.

For a movie about mutants, X-MEN FIRST CLASS has led to a lot of interesting discussion. Set in the '60s -- a time of great social change and timeless fashions -- filmmakers Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman had more on their mind than just fighting.

As all of DC's Batnews has been rolling out today, the biggest question has been "Whither Grant Morrison?"

by Paul O'Brien

Event season is upon us again. FEAR ITSELF launched in April, together with its spin-off anthology FEAR ITSELF: THE HOME FRONT. Further down the charts, "Death of Spider-Man" and "Age of X" are also underway. April also sees the relaunches of THOR and HERC, as well the de facto launch of a new series, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, continuing from THOR's previous numbering.

It's also worth noting Marvel's increasing trend towards shipping extra issues of ongoing titles, apparently in place of low-selling miniseries. Now that the hordes of Captain America and Thor minis which were used to generate movie tie-in material are out of the way, it's actually thinning out quite a bit at the lower end of the chart.

As usual, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market, leading DC by 40% to 27% in dollars and 48% to 27% in units. Of course, FLASHPOINT doesn't start until next month, so you'd expect the gap to be larger than normal in April.

Via MTV, proof that nothing spices up the red carpet like a dying alien with a power ring.

Good news! Turns out DC isn't trying to destroy the direct sales market with their "Flashboot" -- or whatever it's called -- relaunch after all! And it is a relaunch, not a reboot, according to a letter sent by SVP of Sales Bob Wayne to retailers, announcing a pricing strategy that will see digital comics at the SAME price as print comics for their first four weeks of release. Wayne calls this "price parity" -- " No DC digital comic will be cheaper than its physical counterpart at launch." The Johns/Lee JLA #1 will be available with a digital download for $4.99, in print and digital only for $3.99 each.

Tom Hart's essential zeitgeist character Hutch Owen gets his third collection this fall, Let's Get Furious!, due from Top Shelf:

The Source break loose and reveals ten new books and creative teams. And notably, it's basically the same sort of teams we've been seeing for quite a while, but mostly much respected creators. Surely the most Tumbl'rd comic will be a NEW character book featuring a character who is non-white: MISTER TERRIFIC, by Eric Wallace and Roger Robinson. .

D&Q has revealed the cover to Hark! a Vagrant their Kate Beaton collection. Just the other day, The Beat and another industry observer were chatting about this and that and we observed that no one does a comics author tour like D&Q. The fantastic response to the Chester Brown tour being an example of that. Fantagraphics is the only company that even comes close.

You've probably already thought of most of these, but Funny or Die has put them all in one place.