News

We've been following the curious saga of Platinum Studios for some time now, and now, just as MEN IN BLACK 3 is about to open, it seems the company has suffered a blow by being delisted from the SEC:

Well, after a grueling morning spent watching The View, as one might have expected, it was the nerd of the bunch, Whoopi Goldberg, who announced that "Marvel is making history with an issue on sale tomorrow, as Northstar will propose to Kyle with a gay wedding in a future issue." This prompted Joy Behar to ask "Can Batman and Robin come out of the closet now?"

It's all coming together now, isn't it? Marvel has just sent out the following advisory:

Tune into ABC at 11a/10a E/C tomorrow as the hosts of ABC’s The View exclusively reveal a major Marvel announcement! This is your first chance to get a look at the moment in Astonishing X-Men #50 that will have everyone talking!

Artist Sara Pichelli won Best Artist and Best Newcomer awards at last night's Stan Lee Awards, which are presented at the Kapow! to recognize achievements in superhero comics or something. Pichelli was on hand to accept her awards, as you can see, which is a good thing because originally there were no women in comics to go to the show. Luckily, some were found.

The Glyph Awards, presented for “the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color from the preceding calendar year,” were presented last night in Philadelphia, and PRINCELESS the webcomics and ULTIMATE COMICS: SPIDER-MAN led the pack. Here's the complete list:

The Filipino comics world has lost another giant with the passing of Ernie Chan at age 71. Chan, originally known as Ernie Chua, was another one of that generation of artistswho could and did draw anything, but he got has start doing covers for DC before going to the mystery/barbarian genre which made such good use of the heavily illustrative Pinoy style. Chan also had a long run as a definitive inker for John Buscema on Conan. This is a page that Chan only inked but there's a lot of his embellishment in the image.

Daniel Best is at it again, this time with the decades-spanning story of Joe Simons's stolen artwork and a subsequent investigation by the FBI:

The anniversary of Jim Henson's passing gets me thinking...

Cartoonist Matt Bors sent along this video of his acceptance speech for the Herblock Award, which gets into some truths about the cartoonist's life along the way.

Dynamite has landed a new comics license in Pathfinder. Pathfinder, if you're not current on role-playing games, is a sort of spin-off of Dungeons & Dragons. Essentially, the D&D 3.5 rule set is available for licensing via a "Game System License" and Pathfinder jumps off from that point. Tor talks about Pathfinder as being like D&D "3.75" and an alternative to the latest rule revisions to the mother ship.

Tony DeZuniga, co-creator of Jonah Hex and The Black Orchid, has passed away at age 71. He suffered a stroke in April and had been battling a series of health problems since then. DeZuniga was a seminal figure in the "Filipino Invasion" of the '70s and '80s which saw artists like Nestor Redondo, Alex Nino, and Alfredo Alcala entering the US market. He helped introduce many of the artists to US editors and then served as an agent for several years. Like most of the artists in this wave, DeZuniga was an impeccable draftsman who could draw just about anything. He's best remembered for his contributions to the barbarians and Westerns of the day, but he also drew romance, adventure, superhero, horror....like we said, he could draw anything.

Some rambling thoughts that have been rumbling around my head this week. Don't expect it to make any sense.