Entertainment

Graphic Novel Reporter, the resource site for book industry professionals, has released a list of "core" graphic novels that librarians and store owners should consider basics to carry. The list starts with a basic ten book list:

Amulet/Abrams has just announced that the next Wimpy Kid book goes on sale November 9, 2010. The title has yet to be revealed, but creator Jeff Kinney promises changes for Greg and Rowley. The press release also reminds us that a second Wimpy Kid movie is also in the works.

It would probably be fair to say that a lot of people were snickering a bit when it was announced that Jazan Wild (real name Jason Barnes) was suing Heroes for similarities between his carnival plot and theirs:

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, lists similarities including a carnival that can magically appear and disappear to collect protagonists, a young boy who develops special abilities, a carney or hero running through the woods chased by a mob, a circle of mirrors tied to the key plot, similarities in dialogue, and more.

As anyone who has been reading comics or watching tv for more than, oh, five minutes can attest, none of those elements are particularly novel or special. Fact: we edited a carnival story once ourselves and at least one of those elements was in it.

We can't POSSIBLY be the first person to point this out...are we???? While the SCOTT PILGRIM trailer briefly supplanting Justin Bieber as the most important topic on earth has been noted, Bieber's uncanny resemblance to an animated manga character has not -- or at least not on comic book message boards.

Frank Miller, what do cartoonists eat, the iPad as salvation, and a look at Warner's plans for the Looney Tunes in today's news roundup.

With Lost sailing off to TV Valhalla, ABC is left the task of filling the hole on their schedule, and their choice is a live action remake of The Incredibles called No Ordinary Family, about a family that has their superpowers thrust upon them.

One episode to go. Let's discuss "What They Died For" after the jump. spoilers ahoy. That's more like it, right? We got some answers without the...

While Heroes is floating into that great TVLand in the broadcast spectrum -- and become the target of a lawsuit by Jazan Wild over who thought of a carnival first -- NBC is not abandoning the world of superheroes, as we reported yesterday. In keeping up with the times, they are swapping out a complicated, sci-fi tinged multi-character soap opera in the Lost manner, with a single character drama about a dad who wants to make things right. The synopsis sounds pretty lame:

The young people of today can hardly be expected to understand the impact that Tim Burton’s Batman had on movie-goers in the summer of 1989. The general audience of 1989 knew Batman only as the campy, self-conscious, broad-daylight superhero of the Adam West TV show. Nothing in movies prepared viewers for this radical re-thinking of the character, the weird darkness of the themes, the dense, oppressive production design or Jack Nicholson’s performance as The Joker. All of it was alarming, electrifying stuff back then. (Of course, it was all familiar territory for people who had read The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke, but that’s another story.)

More leaks from the set of GREENLANTERN, this time, via Splash Page, Ryan Reynolds in his mocap suit. Aside from noting how fit Reynolds...

Housekeeping notes: • The OLD Beat is up at a new URL: whenmonkeysattack.com. Believe it or not we're still trying to get all the old...

If I lived in a world where this was real, I'd be so happy. In truth, it is a fake commercial by Phil Lord and Chris Miller made in 1998 for a series of educational shorts about action figures based on historical figures. It was never aired. Thank god for YouTube.