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Today's slam dunk interview is Alex Dueben's chat with Fantagraphics' publisher Gary Groth, probably just because on the internet a frank discussion with a knowledgeable comics publishing figure is about as common as a humble moment from LeBron. Throw in that he has stellar vocabulary skills, and you have a winner.

Golden Age artist Lew Sayre Schwartz, best known as one of Bob Kane's ghosts of the Batman comic, died over the weekend of complications from a fall, according to his son Andrew. A memorial service is planned for July.

Meanwhile, back at the box office, GREEN LANTERN debuted at #1 with $52.6 million, less than THOR and even X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. As the Times put it: "An all-hands-on-deck effort by Warner Brothers to turn “Green Lantern” into a box office superpower fizzled over the weekend." With a budget of a reported $300 million, dreadful reviews and a big Friday-to-Saturday drop-off, GL's task as the advance guard for a new generation of movies based on DC characters has been made much more difficult.

More great Canadian cartoonists were honored Saturday, with the presentation of this year's Joe Shuster Awards at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo with...

Musician Larry "Wild Man" Fischer died on June 16th at age 66. Challenged by severe mental illness his whole life, he was one of the earliest known examples of Outsider Music with his tuneless, shouted ditties that somehow still tapped into the joy of music and performance.

Judging from the images released so far, it would appear that the relaunched versions of Superman and Superboy will be different from previous versions. Superman will no longer be wearing red shorts over his blue tights, and his belt, boots and S-symbol have also undergone notable alterations. Somewhat more dramatically, Superboy is sporting a black shirt and pants, a black-and-white S-shield mini-cape attached to his back, and a stylized red S-shield tattoo. It also appears that both characters will have significant changes in their continuity, most notably Superman’s age and his relationship with Lois Lane. This changes in the Superman costume are in themselves not likely to provide a solid foundation for erasing the Siegel heirs' ownership interest. However, the costume changes and other shifts in continuity are consistent with DC's arguments for limiting what the Siegels now own.  

Bob Haney and Del Connell are the writers selected to received this year's Finger Award. The Finger Award is presented each year to writers, one living, one dead, who for whatever reason, have not received the recognition they should have for their creative efforts. It's named for Bill Finger, who created much of the Batman mythos we see today while Bob Kane got the credit.

When the Captain America movie was in the planning stages, there was some anxiety over whether the "America" in the title would be off-putting to foreign lands, where so much movie money is made these days. Well, there's one place that Cap fits right in and it's Wal*Mart, which has a whole Captain America store, including a link to CAPTAIN AMERICA: FIRST VENGEANCE #1 a digital comic byFred Ven Lente, Luke Ross, and Richard Isanove that you can read right now for free via Marvel's DCU interface. The comic has been up for a while, but it's interesting to see Wal*Mart getting into the game.

The owner of a book imprint called ibooks is suing Apple over the trademark.

Archie's dynamic publisher Jon Goldwater gets the Comics Reporter interview treatment and his comments on the many changes he's made since the venerable comics publisher had a big management change might be viewed as emblematic of much going on these days: