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Joe Simon, legendary Golden Age co-creator of such characters as Captain America, the Sandman and hundreds more, has died at age 98, according to his son's posting on Facebook. Together with his partner Jack Kirby, Simon revolutionized the superhero, horror and romance genres -- there pretty much wouldn't be comics as we know them without the work of these two.

Over on their "Mystery Project Liveblog," Marvel has announced the new team on Astonish X-Men. Taking over with issue #48 in March are Marjorie Liu and Mike Perkins.

IDW has announced that Greg Goldstein has been promoted to the rank of president. In a release, Goldstein is credited with helping drive much of IDW's growth in new business channels. Publisher Ted Adams will continue to oversee overall strategy while Goldstein takes on more of the day-to-day operations of the company. In addition, Anna Maria White, IDW's Director of Marketing and PR, is leaving to start her own marketing company.

Oops, well just yesterday The Beat and Michael Sangiacomo were reporting that Archie Comics co-CEO Nancy Silberkleit was continuing to peacefully tell children about the joys of comics despite her past as the target of a sexual harassment lawsuit. However, it seems that a series of anonymous phone calls alerted school officials to Silberkleit's ongoing legal problems and the school visits were canceled. A comics shop appearance and the sale of comics to benefit the schools have gone on as planned. But there is much more than that going on.

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?

Batman artist, creator rights activist and creator of the Joker Jerry Robinson passed away in his sleep last night. He was 89. Like many Golden Agers, Robinson started young: At age 17 he became an assistant in Bob Kane's Batman shop where he co-created Robin. He also provided the majority of visuals and background for The Joker. Eventually moving into editorial cartooning, Robinson had a long, distinguished career as an artist and educator. In the 70s he helped spearhead the movement to get Siegel and Shuster compensation for creating Superman; he also traveled to Uruguay and the Soviet Union to help free jailed cartoonists. He was President of both the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) and the National Cartoonists Society (NCS).

The Valiant comics relaunch has been brewing for a while, with some hires and much consultation, but they've just let the cat out of the bag -- their new line is expected to launch next May, with a Free Comic Book Day preview leading the way. The preview will feature X-O MANOWAR, BLOODSHOT, HARBINGER, and probably some other Valiant favorites. The creatives teams haven't been announced but the preview over is by Jelena Kevic-Djurdjevic. Valiant has also hired Hunter Gorinson as Marketing & Communications Manager and Atom Freeman as Senior Sales Representative in addition to Warren Simon as Executive Editor, so they're putting together a pretty good team.

Best American Comics series editors Matt Madden and Jessica Abel have just posted the Notable Comics of 2011 list, those comics that did not make the contents of this year's Alison Bechdel-edited book, but are still worthy of notice. The listing includes covers, links and more information:

What is Platinum up to now that COWBOYS & ALIENS finally came out? Well, according to this call with shareholders, lots of COWBOYS & ALIENS merchandising and licensing...meaning it has now taken the place of MEN IN BLACK in the SCott Rosenberg bio. But new stuff is coming! And in a cost-cutting measure they have hired a company to rep them -- but instead of paying cash they pay stock. Elsewhere, it's a LOT of cost-cutting -- not a bad idea given the huge losses they have been reporting.

Time is rolling out its top 10 lists and two graphic books made the 'Top 10 Fiction Books list: THE DEATH RAY by Daniel Clowes and HARK! A VAGRANT by Kate Beaton, both published by Drawn & Quarterly. (To see the individual listings you'll need to go through the annoying, hit making slideshow format.) Confirming the nerd-friendly tenor of the list, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS by George R. R. Martin topped the list, although more traditional literary tomes were at other spots. Comics-mole Lev Grossman penned the entries for the books. It was only a few years ago that Alison Bechdel's FUN HOME topped theTime list, and announced that graphic novels were just books with ideas and themes, too.

These days, it seems like three years on a title is a good run. Brian Michael Bendis is calling it a day with eight years on the Avengers titles. In an interview with Comic Book Resources, Bendis says: