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Actually, Julian Darius wrote the headline used in this KnB title, but it's the essential comics match up of all times, right? Also, Winsor McCay wasn't a very good letterer.

I imagine most of you reading this aren't reading this, but are already off on your holiday travels. While the team at Stately Beat Manor is going to remain vigilant for exciting, world changing breaking news, we're going into "holiday mode" for posting, which is about the same as the regular mode except we gave it a name. But to make the holidays bright, I have some previews, art, webcomic alerts and maybe a few other surprises lined up in case you get bored. In the meantime, safe travels and happy holidays to all.

There is a tower defense game I love to play on the iPad called Kingdom Rush. Not too long ago they released a new version called Kingdom Rush Frontiers which is the most imaginative and adorable version of the game yet. Like all fantasy games, it's completely tangled up in the vision of JRR Tolkien, with elves, dwarves, rangers and even in this version an ent. Each stage has many extras like little dragons, gnomes, fairies, magic mushrooms and even a game of Simon. It's adorable and a great way to pass the time. I found the first Hobbit movie two years ago to be similar to a tub of Cosy Shack rice pudding in that I never got sick of each and every bite, and I just liked watching people named Thorin and Elrond run around. Since then, while I have yet to tire of Cosy Shack, I have tired of Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies because they are nothing but a map in Kingdom Rsh blown up to IMAX size and length and noise. Maybe it's just me being 11 years older than when the Return of the King came out, or Peter Jackson being 11 years older, but The Battle of Five Armies seemed to take as much from Jackson's fanfic King Kong remake as it did the slim book it was based on. And that is not good.

Talk about an early Christmas present. Emily Carroll's delicious and innovative horror comics are a yearly Halloween treat, and now she's gifted us with a Christmas...

Ed Brisson of Sheltered and Sons of Anarchy fame has just announced a brand new project over at BOOM! Studios entitled Cluster. The book...

Looking for some nerd themed bling fro gifts? King Ice offers this nice Thor's helemet pendent, along with a lot of other hip hop...

The other day, Tom Spurgeon linked to a Facebook post by cartoonist T Edward Bak in which he frets about the "money vs art vs oh god what the hell am I doing" feeling that many in the indie world are having, and which we've written about many times. In response I was about to go link to a fantastic FB post by Derf Backderf in which he talks about being a cancer survivor and what he's done since—delivered the great book My Friend Dahmer, continued to cartoon, enjoyed life with his family, travelled the world. It was a wonderful life affirming post that puts a lot of things into perspective. But....it was gone.

The whole Humble Bundle move to selling comics and e-books worked very well, Calvin Reid reports:

While comics seem to be holding their own as an industry, with revenue generally up, there are a few folks on shaky ground, and 2014 saw a few casualties. One of them is Great Beast, the indie uUK graphic novel publisher run by cartoonists Adam Cadwell and Mark Ellerby. The imprint was sort of run as an "Image" like model, with Great Beast generally handling distribution for an emerging generation of UK cartoonists including , Robert M Ball, Dan Berry, Adam Cadwell, Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Dan Cox, John Cei Douglas, Marc Ellerby, Isabel Greenberg, John Riordan and Rachael Smith. The reason for the shut down? Too much success basically. Ellerby had left running the publisher earlier in the year and Cadwell did not have the time to keep things going:

There were few dry eyes across America as Stephen Colbert wrapped up his nine year run on The Colbert Report—and staying in character, instead of breaking the wall and getting sentimental, he went gonzo fantasy, defeating Grimmy, his long time nemesis, or Death himself, and gaining immortality. Immortality has perks, such as assembling a zeitgeist all-stat lineup of pals from Bryan Cranston to George Lucas to Cyndi Lauper and James Franco who came out to sing the closing song from Dr Strangelove, "We'll Meet Again. " Although it was hard to spot all the celebs in the chorus, among them was two-time guests, Marvel CCO Joe Quesada:

The federal government is suing NYC over the treatment of teen-aged inmates at the legendary—and not in a good way— Riker's Island detention facility. The federal...

The judges for the 2015 Eisner Awards have been announced, and as usual they are a stellar group: Carr D'Angelo, librarian/professor Richard Graham, Marvel the Untold Story author Sean Howe, academic Susan Kirtley, volunteer Ron McFee and the incomparable Maggie Thompson, who I can't believe has never been a judge before! The judges will meet in early April to binge read every comic put out in 2015, and nominees will be announced shortly afterwards. More info here.