History

Infographic Created by Shirts.com If such a thing can really be done—and let's face it, around about NÜ Marvel it got a lot harder. Anyway Beat Contributor and Mistress of the Infographic Arts Kate Willaert...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5EqPZMZO4s My log saw something—and it's wrapped in plastic. Could it be....TWIN PEAKS: THE ENTIRE MYSTERY, a new Blue Ray set that includes the long lost 90 minutes of missing and alternate footage from Fire...

I stole this link from Tom Spurgeon, and I'm just as fascinated by it as he is: it's a photo of the 1969 Comic Art Convention Luncheon Photo, July 5, 1969 at the Statler...

I think this statement from the family of Bill FInger, the long uncredited co-creator of most of the Batman mythos speaks for itself. The long memories of comics aren't just for issue numbers, people....

A few weeks ago we alluded to this glowing profile of Marvel Studios Head Kevin Feige in Businessweek, which, while semi-revealing, was also semi-revering. Clearly, Feige's Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most successful movie concepts of the 21st century, but I'm sure he puts his Hulk hands on one mitt at a time. Well, one person who did not like this profile was Amazing Spider-Man 2 producer Avi Arad, who penned an angry letter to the writer of the piece. The bit that Arad specifically took issue with is the claim that Arad quit Marvel Studios over his disagreement with Marvel's $535 million dollar credit line with Merill Lynch to make movies, the deal that set the stage for the MCU as we know it.

Amazing Spider-Man is definitely a hit—$91.6 million opening weekend—but the questions are just beginning. As are the spoilers just in case you DO NOT KNOW THE CENTRAL CANON OF SPIDER-MAN LORE. Look away, look away if you haven't seen the movie or read the comics. If you have...you may proceed.

BTW one of the highlights of this year's Free Comic Book Day has to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird making their first public appearance together in 20 years! They signed at Jetpack Comics in New Hampshire, and I'm sure it was quite an event. TMNT celebrates their 30th anniversary this year and the new movie is coming out August 12th, whiel IDW is publishing the comic, with a 30th Anniversary Special coming out this month.

I have some nice pictures of the late Al Feldstein from several San Diegos ago, but I couldn't find them in my 20000+ digital photo library. But I did find this bad blurry photo...

Speaking of Marvel and diversity, in 2002, Marvel published a Cage mini written by Brian Azzarello with art by Richard Corben. It was rough, gritty and unforgettable. However, on one page, Corben—known for his...

As you may have recalled, Ridley is actually one those big comics fans in Hollywood and spent a while writing comics for Wildstorm, including a run on the Authority, the mini-series Razor's Edge: Warblade, and The American Way. The latter is a book that really deserves to be on more comics reading lists—an 8 issue mini-series drawn by Georges Jeanty and Karl Story that has similar themes to Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier about the cold war and superheroes, but treats them with a much harsher view. The book follows the government's development of the Civil Defense Corps, a pr-driven team of superheroes introduced in the early 60s, and the turmoil that stem from the first African-American member in the Civil Rights era. A lot of comics mini-series have tried to be "the Next Watchmen" and The American Way is one of the few series that takes that tired "What if superheroes really existed???" idea and gives it a take based on the real world and not the imagined one.

Few stories have been as entertaining to cover from a financial skullduggery aspect as the saga of Platinum Studios, a long running con game of a company that cheated a bunch of creators out of their creations while coasting on the success of the first Men in Black film, which it had published in comics form. Founded in 1997, it developed a ton of comics for years without publishing anything while hoping for salvation from the Cowboys and Aliens. I wrote a long history of the company's bizarre penny stock antics here but the short version is that this business plan never works:

In one of his last interviews, longtime Batman artist Jerry Robinson spoke with "BatmobileHistory.com" about the origin of the Batmobile: BatmobileHistory: Starting with Detective Comics #27, when Batman started, the design of his car varied wildly...but then in Batman #5, the design with the bat mask and roof fin appeared . . . Was there a specific origin or inspiration for that design? It's really the first superhero car...