Publishers

by Marc-Oliver Frisch After unleashing a deluge of new titles in May, DC Comics' lineup of major periodicals was fairly restrained in June. There were...

A version of Wonder Woman aimed at teen-aged girls and not 40-year-old men? That will never fly. BTW for everyone who is always wondering "How should a pitch look???" Here's an example. Of course, being able to draw as well as Ben Caldwell really helps.

Artist Stephen DeStefano directs us to a trailer for his new graphic novel LUCKY IN LOVE, written by George Chieffet. The trailer was directed by Miguel Martinez-Joffre and colored by Carly Monardo -- both are vets of The Venture Bros., as is DeStefano.

by Paul O'Brien It's a month of relaunches and new titles, as the "Heroic Age" branding continues. June saw the relaunch of NEW AVENGERS,...

The road to comic book Valhalla is lined with companies that have tried to do "celebrity comics" as a means of switching to the fast lane of movie money and licensing gold. Tekno, Virgin, CrossGen. There is hardly a company that does not have some kind of celebrity "vanity project" comic out there made mostly to show to producers as a bible for a film. And all of this is despite the fact that not a single movie has yet been made from a comic book that was published just to be turned into a movie. COWBOYS & ALIENS, which is certainly an A-list project with Jon Favreau, Daniel Craig, and Harrison Ford aboard is set to be the first comic of its genre to ever actually get turned into a big movie. But this is the first time it has ever happened and it took 10 years. And despite this, there are still no other Platinum, Tokyopop, Radical, or Liquid movies. No one can go to Netflix and order the MAYHEM movie or OCD movie or GAMEKEEPER movie.

Funnybook Babylon has an interesting charticle looking at the runs of various Vertigo ongoing series over the years, following some speculation that books were being canceled there because of increased scrutiny from DC's new management. Chris Eckert suggests this is not the case, or at least not the only factor, by showing that the lowest selling titles are always canceled, although nowadays the best selling title is something that would have been canceled a decade ago. Eckert also runs a chart showing relative Amazon rankings for various Vertigo trades, a weak metric but all we have to go on.

A vigilant reader sent us this scan of an ad in the current edition of Women's Wear Daily, the bible of the fashion trade. The ad, for Green Lantern licensing opportunities, ran in a previews section for the upcoming 2010 MAGIC Marketplace, "the preeminent trade event in the international fashion industry." Obviously, Warner Bros. has BIG, BIG plans for Green Lantern licensing -- and based on the number of folks we see walking the streets of NYC in GL T-shirts, we'd say they might just be on to something.

MK Reed writes to point us to a new website, SAVE APATHEA! which will be serializing her upcoming First Second graphic novel Americus, which is due out in late 2011. It's described as the story of "Neil Barton, a teenager growing up in Oklahoma, and his fight to keep his favorite fantasy series, The Chronicles of Apathea Ravenchilde, in his public library." Reed (a sometime Beat contributor) writes and Jonathan Hill provides art. The first chapter was previously published in Papercutter #7. News pages will go up Monday-Wednesday-Friday.

Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. #3 variant cover by Dustin Weaver reveals an intriguing new spelling for the name of physics god Sir Isaac Newton. However a peek at the promo copy for the issue , while urging us to "discover the secrets" of the man who popularized gravity, also allows us to discover one of Marvel's more startling secrets:

Judge Barbara Crabb has made a decision following the June court appearance by Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane over profits for the characters Dark Ages Spawn, Tiffany and Domina. Gaiman held that these cast-members of the Spawn-i-verse were derivative of Medieval Spawn and Angela (characters that he co-owns, as ruled after the epic 2002 court battle), thus he was entitled to half the profits from these characters. McFarlane held the opposite and had refused to provide information on the profits. Judge Crabb sided with Gaiman, citing the similarity of the characters in a decision (readable here) which shows she spent a lot of time reading up on Spawn:

Via the Village Voice

Via Major Spoilers, the explanation of how, at least in Kevin Smith's world, Batman sometimes pees his pants when things get a little too...