Link roundup

1. Picking the characters for the Young Justice cartoon:

"We started with a list of over 50 teenage heroes from the DC Universe," he recalled. "For example, the DC Universe has four blonde teenaged female archers, so there are a lot of characters."

2. Puzzle Agent is 99 cents at iTunes.

3. Star Wars wallpapers for the iPhone.

Illustration roundup

Francesco Francavilla:

this is the cover for BLACK PANTHER: THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE #525, which debuted at SDCC last week. It will be out in November and will be the beginning of a new arc where T’Challa will be facing the Kingpin (Wilson Fisk), Lady Bullseye, Typhoid Mary, and lots and lots of ninjas.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto by David Palumbo on sale as a print here.




Frazier Irving:

Some months back, my buddy and collaborator Simon Spurrier became very, very old. To make him feel better I drew him a birthday image and printed it out so he could frame it and gaze at it’s loveliness as his faded with each passing moment, sorta like a Dorian Grey thing to order. All of the characters in the background he either created or worked on whilst making very good comics. I figured, however, that it isn’t enough that only he can gaze at it, so I have decided to unleash it upon the internet. Yes, that’s Simon at the bottom of the picture.

*Buy Lone Ranger toys at eBay.

Link roundup

1. The five finalists in the Bioshock Infinite t-shirt design contest.

2. "Use seawater or vinegar to treat jellyfish stings, not urine."

3. "Artist EVOL Installs Miniature City Underneath Grassy Field."

4. Jess Nevins's Annotations to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume III Chapter Two, a.k.a. Century: 1969 (10% off at TFAW).

Watch the Grant Morrison documentary Talking With Gods

The Grant Morrison documentary Talking With Gods is really well-done. Morrison's success = talent + the exact right amount of drugs + very hard work (+ top notch collaborators). But Final Crisis is lousy. I've tried rereading it, and it does not get better. And telling critics that it's supposed to be confusing, or that they're loser supergeeks who aren't deep enough to get it, is pathetic.

(Sorry if you don't get Hulu where you live.)

Best Covers: Marvel Comics solicitations for October 2011

Lots of great covers in Marvel's solicitations for October 2011:


CASANOVA: AVARITIA #2 Cover by GABRIEL BÁ



X-MEN: SCHISM #5 Cover by ADAM KUBERT



S.H.I.E.L.D. #3 Cover by GERALD PAREL





FF #10 & #11 Covers by STEVE EPTING



SECRET AVENGERS #18 Cover by JOHN CASSADAY



CAPTAIN AMERICA #4 Cover by Steve McNiven



BLACK PANTHER: THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE #524 Cover by FRANCESCO FRANCAVILLA



AVENGERS #18 Marvel Comics 50th Anniversary Variant by RYAN MEINERDING




ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #3 Cover by KAARE ANDREWS



ULTIMATE COMICS HAWKEYE #3 Cover by KAARE ANDREWS



ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #2 Cover by KAARE ANDREWS



NEW MUTANTS #32 Cover by JASON PEARSON

*Buy Marvel Legends action figures at eBay.

More Marvel toy photos

Another good gallery of pics of the upcoming Marvel toys, including the Future Foundation.

Link roundup

1. Annotations for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century 1969 (20% off at TFAW). Via.

2. Norwegian response to the gunman:

An inadequate boat and a decision to await a special armed unit from Oslo, 45 km (28 miles) away, delayed the response.

"When so many people and equipment were put into it, the boat started to take on water, so that the motor stopped," said Erik Berga, police operations chief in Buskerud County.

3. Chip Kidd is writing a Batman comic.

4. Seinfeld: The Most Kafkaesque Show on Television.

5. Lots of photos of the "vintage" Star Wars figures that will be clogging the shelves in the near future. Is someone buying these things in other cities? Not in LA.

Link roundup

1. "Clark Kent has very rarely changed into Superman in a phone booth, including not once on the 1950s Superman TV series!" And at the same link, Death of the Endless appeared in an issue of the Hulk.

2. Fun comic book scan featuring Hawkman turned into a gorilla by Gorilla Grodd (site is NSFW).

3. Fascinating that some bloggers hear about a tragedy and immediately devise ways to turn it into a SEO opportunity.

4. Relatedly, the manner in which Google has deleted (and occasionally restored) accounts without warning over vaguely-defined Google+ abuse is pretty disturbing.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alex Ross (with a twist)

30 Rock meets the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alex Ross. Via these fine sites.

*At Toycutter: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen custom action figures.

New Marvel Universe action figures

Big gallery of photos of the upcoming Marvel universe figures, including Mr. Sinister, Gambit, Psylocke, and Beast.

*Buy Marvel Universe figures at eBay.

Link roundup

1. I finally saw Deathly Hallows part 2. All in all I thought it was great, with the talk with the Ravenclaw ghost being especially cool. The special effects were terrific, aside from the horrendous broomstick escape from the flames. And the scene with Dumbledore in limbo flickered so badly (in 2D) that I had to look away.

2. Grant Morrison doesn't like superfans (to say the least). The excerpt mentions Morrison's take on Mark Millar's Wanted. A few years ago, I'd heard so much about Wanted that I picked up an issue and was absolutely horrified by what I was reading.

3. Is this from The Onion? Google is offering a credit card "with what it calls a competitive interest rate, an ample credit line and no annual fee. The catch: it can only be used to buy search advertising on the world's No.1 Internet search engine." Via.

Andrew Garfield Spider-Man action figure

Marvel Universe Andrew Garfield Spider-Man. Via.

And in other Marvel toy news, there will be new Marvel Legends figures. "Wave 1 will be: Klaw (classic look), Hope Summers, Constrictor, Steve Rogers as the Super Soldier, Iron Man (one of his classic armors), what looks to be the new movie version of Ghost Rider, the Comic Con Thor and the Build-a-figure is Terrax." (That is a remarkably undesirable lineup.)

*Buy build-a-figures at eBay.

Lego Hit Girl and Kick-Ass

Lego Hit Girl and Kick-Ass by Iain Heath.

*Buy Kick-Ass posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. 9% of those special flashlights for the Warren Ellis/Berg SVK comic were broken on arrival.

2. FYI, if you plan on visiting Los Angles, do not stay in a hotel downtown.

3. Book giveaway.

Best Covers: DC Comics solicitations for October 2011

My favorite covers from the DC Comics solicitations for October 2011:


Men of War #2 cover by Viktor Kalvachev.



Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #2 cover by J.G. Jones.



Green Lantern Corps #2 cover by Alex Garner.

Link roundup

1. Art box giveaway.

2. Really interesting article about the economy.

3. The new Captain America: Super Solider video game is apparently barely worth a day rental: "The game (which runs to a stingy six hours at best) is sparsely populated by instantly-forgettable enemies."

4. io9 reviews the Warren Ellis/Berg comic SVK ($32 for 40 lackluster pages).

Wolverine and Captain America by Travis Charest

The highlight of the Wildcats was Wildcats/X-Men The Golden Age by Travis Charest (you can find copies at eBay). And now Charest is teasing a new project, also set in World War II, to feature Wolverine and Captain America.

Revolving doors are hard

It's Namor vs. Daredevil (and Daredevil's building) in Daredevil #7 (site is NSFW).

*Buy Daredevil toys at eBay.

Link roundup

1. If Heart of Darkness had starred Cobra Commander.

2. Bill Simmons relating an anecdote from his favorite sports book:

My favorite: someone fighting with Bobby Hull, then hearing the crowd hush like something awful just happened … and realizing that he accidentally pulled Hull's toupee off. This definitely would have led SportsCenter if it existed in the late 1970's.

3. DC's comic book cover artists have a sick sense of humor.

Movie Spider-Man, comic book Spider-Man

The new movie Spider-Man costume looks great. Via these sites.



Amazing Spider-Man #665 cover by Paolo Rivera.

*Buy Spider-Man Happy Meal toys at eBay.