Culture

By Todd Allen

Vertigo has announced a new mini-series, The New Deadwardians.  I have to admit, I chuckled when I read the description:

Set in post-Victorian England, nearly everyone in the upper class has voluntarily become a vampire to escape the lower classes who are all zombies.

Have a Silver Surfin' Christmas with Diana Tamblyn's Marvel holiday cards.

DC has announced Night Force is returning as a 7-issue mini-series in March. This will be the third revival for the series, which retains its original writer: Marv Wolfman. Night Force originally dates back to 1982, when Wolfman and Gene Colan reunited after their long run on Tomb of Dracula. The first run lasted 14 issues. The second series went for 12 issues from 1996-97, with a variety of artists like Brent Anderson and Matt Smith joining Wolfman.

Yesterday's comments by Tom Brevoort on the lack of sales support for female characters at Marvel did not go unnoticed by the usual gender issue commentators.

Charges against cartoonist/journalist Susie Cagle for "being present at a raid" have been dropped, although not without a bit of drama:

DC sure is coming on steady with these writer changes. On Wednesday, you had Paul Cornell off Stormwatch (though DC really only announced Paul Jenkins writing a 2-parter, Cornell was the one announcing he was off). On Tuesday, you had Joe Harris replacing Gail Simone as Firestorm co-writer. On Monday, you had Tom DeFalco replacing Fabian Niceiza on Legion Lost. Are we seeing a pattern pattern here?

You may have witnessed some out of control hyperbole about Marvel's recently announced Avengers Vs. X-Men. My personal favorite, courtesy of Newsarama's recap: Pre-taped words from all five writers. "There's never been an Avengers vs. X-Men super-blowout, so it's like, we have to do it," Bendis says. Never been one? Seems like I own copies of something answering that description...

When last we saw Archie Comics co-CEO Nancy Silberkleit, she was being slapped with a restraining order by Archie Comics and accused of some rather odd behavior. The widow of former Archie owner Michael Silberkleit, Nancy was accused of harassing Archie employees by yelling out words for genitalia at meetings and other odd stuff. Whatever the state of these internal affairs, Silberkleit is still out there using comics to teach children to read, according to a recent story about her visiting various elementary schools:

Toonseum, the Pittsburgh-based comics museum, has teamed with East End Brewing Company to produce Illustration Ale, a pen-and-ink friendly brew that has six different labels by illustrators. Ed Piskor has posted the process for his label which features Wally Wood:

Did you think I was going to miss this one? The noisy birds from the world's most popular mobile game are back with a new Christmas comic which is rolling out a page a day. See how the blue bird functions as the triplicate chorus, a la Huey Dewey and Louie?

The season of writer changes continues at DC. It's been rumored for weeks that Gail Simone left her co-writing duties on Firestorm. Today, DC confirms Simone's departure and names Joe Harris her replacement. Issue 7 will be his first.

How better to celebrate Fred Van Lente Day than with this gem by Ryan Dunlavey, his collaborator on Comic Book Comics, their history of comics comic. For more Van Lente goodness, check out the first link for a preview of his book with Sarah Oleksyk.