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The Avengers are fighting the X-men, yes, but why? As someone who hadn't read any 616 Avengers or X-men for a while, would I even be able to understand Avengers vs X-men? I figured it out and so can you - for your convenience, a (mostly AvX spoiler-free) guide to understanding Marvel's newest comics event.

While looking for a comics cover for a sick alert, I realized that the heyday era of the doctor comic was definitely the early '60s. Licensed comics were such a big deal then, especially for Dell/Western. They licensed just about anything. The BEN CASEY and Dr. KILDARE comics were based on popular TV shows of the time. Dr. KILDARE lasted about 9 issues, BEN CASEY 10, although it did spin off into a comic strip which was written and drawn by Neal Adams.

This year's nominees are up led by Marvel's DAREDEVIL, with six noms, and Jim Henson/Ramon K. Perez's TALE OF SAND with five. This year's judges were reviewer Brigid Alverson (Graphic Novel Reporter, CBR, Robot 6) , retailer Calum Johnston (Strange Adventures, Halifax, Nova Scotia), librarian Jesse Karp (LREI, New York), cartoonist Larry Marder (Beanworld), comics historian Benjamin Saunders (University of Oregon), and Comic-Con board of director Mary Sturhann. They added two new categories while dropping four:

Regular posting will resume....hopefully.

Last year a federal court in New York denied the Kirby heirs' attempt to claim the copyright in Spider-Man and other Marvel properties. Why, then, is their lawyer betting the future of the Siegel lawsuit on the same losing arguments?

BOOM! Studios has reaffirmed their exclusivity with Diamond to comics shops throughout the world, according to this morning's press release. Boom! has experimented with other distributors in the past — such as a brief affair with Haven for second printings—but Haven went away so...back to Diamond. Boom! also had distribution deals with Simon and Schuster for bookstores and backlist, but that may have run out.

Emerald City was mostly Marvel and DC lite, so the announcements are very indie/creator focused. And here they are, with a corresponding Pants Peeing Index ®, as in how likely this news is to make you pee your pants in excitement on a scale of 1-5.

Holy crap, it is award season! Here's this year's Stumptown Award nominees. The nominees were selected by a screening committee; winners will be selected by online voting at this link, which is open until 11:59 pm on Wednesday, April 18. The awards will be presented to the winners during the Comics Fest After Party on Saturday, April 28 at the Jupiter Hotel.

Hero Initiative is the non-profit organization that aids comic creators in medical and financial need—and if you've been reading the Beat lately you know that they are more needed than ever. Tonight, as part of the Emerald City Comicon, they are having a bowling fundraiser which sounds like a great time for a great cause, as they say. Although spots have already been auctioned off, you can still go watch the fun:

DC's latest filing in the Siegel case made headlines because of the company's request for a trial. But was that really a surprise? In today's post, we'll look at what the filing reveals about DC's not-so-secret war -- and how the final fate of Superman may be determined by Facebook and the Winklevoss twins.

Some moves at the top for VIZ, as Ken Sasaki moves into the role of president and CEO as Hidemi Fukuhara moves up to the role of Vice Chairman for VIZ Media.

ComiXology's collection of media mavens continues with the addition of Peter Levin to the advisory board. Levin is the CEO of Nerdist Industries, and has worked with Nikki Finke and the Angry Birds in the past. Other advisory board members include ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp, former DC publisher Jenette Kahn, and former ZDNet head Jeff Ballowe. So as you can see, this advisory board doubtless has a lot of advice.