Culture

Well, HOLY CRAP. It's all done broke loose now, hasn't it. What the hell is going on? The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together. OR should that be: men and women, blacks and whites making COMICS together. It seems like "The Diversity Issue" in comics has exploded all over the place. It can't be silenced. It can't be swept under the rug. More accurately, its ISP can't be blocked. The intersquawk just won't let these issue die. Is it just a few malcontents who won't shut up? Is it a reflection of the world we live in? Or is it just that as we enter the Digital Age of comics (and everything else) infinite accessibility means that the broadening audience for comics needs them to step up and join the real world?

The must-read from yesterday is Michael Dean's look at the actual court documents ALSO, Spanish cartoonist Pepo Perez has his own comments on creator ownership, here in the Google translation. That's makes for some awkwardness, but also some great stuff.

The feud between dueling comics movies COWBOYS & ALIENs and THE SMURFS erupted in violence last night when COWBOYS star Harrison Ford ripped the head off a stuffed Papa Smurf handed to him my late night chat host Conan O'Brien. Ford's rage may have been misplaced, as COWBOYS AND ALIENS eventually edged SMURFS at the box office by a million buckaroonies or so. If nothing else, the incident set up a dandy idea for a sequel: COWBOYS VS LITTLE BLUE PEOPLE.

All of you folks who have been crying about diversity in comics had better be all over this! Marvel has revealed that the new Ultimate Spider-Man will be Hispanic/African-American teenager Miles Morales. A USA Today story broke the news and reveals that yes, Donald Glover's campaign to play Spider-Man was an influence on writer Brian Michael Bendis, although only as an indication that previous discussions about relaunching Spider-Man as a non-white character were on the right track.

Spinning out of a Facebook discussion, cartoonist and educator Steve Bissette is making a case for a boycott of Marvel over how shabbily they have treated Jack Kirby and his heirs:

It seems that Kyrax2's lonely crusade at Comic-Con -- booed and laughed at and told to shut up -- has yielded results, as the internet has swelled one voice to thousands. Last yesterday, DC Entertainment co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee posted a statement called, simply, We hear you:

The Comics Journal is posting video tapes of several Comic-Con panels -- so avoiding those crowds was the right way to go after all! Here's one that we much desired to see 50 Years of Comic Book Fandom with Mark Evanier, Jean Bails, Paul Levitz, Dick and Pat Lupoff, Richard Kyle, Bill Schelly, Roy Thomas, and Maggie Thompson. This is where it all began, people.

A sad day for those who hoped, perhaps against hope, that Jack "The King' Kirby's heirs would get some of the money their father's creations have made over the years. Characters including Captain America (created in the '40s with Joe Simon), The Hulk, Iron Man and Thor-- you know, if they called next year's potential biggest-movie-of-all-time THE AVENEGRS "JACK KIRBY'S AVENGERS" they would not be far from the mark. Deadline has analysis, seeing it as a big setback for lawyer Marc Toberoff, who has won many unlikely IP cases against giant studios in the past:

Not much happened for me personally at Comic Con on Sunday except for getting the frack out of there before getting quashed by a giant menacing smurf but I nonetheless have a bunch of cool schtuff to share from Sunday and previous days...

Where's Merle Dixon? That's the question AMCTV is posing to Comic Con attendees at The Walking Dead booth. Con-goers can also pose for a shot with an eerilly...

Showing, not telling, as I post selected photos from around the Web.

Today, DC's Vertigo imprint had its big panel of the convention. At it, Max Collins, creator of the graphic novel The Road to Perdition wil be doing a third (and last) graphic novel in the series for Vertigo entitled Return to Perdition.Ongoing series The Unwritten will be moving to an unusual twice a month format, with full numbered issues (32, 33, 34 etc) detailing the main plot alternating with decimal issues (32.5, 33.5, 34.5 and so on) exploring other characters and storylines in the same world. John Constantine's ongoing title Hellblazer will not end, despite the character's ventures into the mainstream DCU.