The 100% True* Rumor Report: San Diego ComicCon Edition

As you all probably know, this is a huge weekend for news of the comics industry as publishers make their biggest announcements of the year at San Diego’s ComicCon International!

Unfortunately, while SDCC rages on into the night with a non-stop party machine driven by guys like Kevin Church and Bully, I’m stuck over here on the East Coast, which is a shame, because believe it or not, I was actually invited to be on a panel this year. Still, I’m not going to let a little matter of 3,000 miles keep me away from the breaking news, so I’ve been on the phone all day with trusted sources and I’ve been Twittering up a storm to bring you the news that you won’t be seeing anywhere else!

 

Marvel Comics

 

  • Sources report that the House of Ideas is going to be expanding their “Marvel Bestselling Authors” line, rechristening it as “Marvel Bestselling Artists”–including recording artists! First up, fan-favorite writer Matt Fraction teams with Amazing Spider-Man‘s Phil Jiminez for a six-issue series that shows what happens when a young man gets everything he always wanted… and doesn’t live happily ever after in Skee-Lo’s I Wish.

    Future plans include a multi-part epic of urban warfare, starting with Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em v.1: Now Watch Me Do.

  • With the upcoming movie just over the horizon, Marvel’s tapped indie superstar Chip Zdarsky, of Monster Cops fame, to write and draw a 48-page Giant Size Dazzler one-shot to reintroduce Allison Blaire to a new generation of fans!
  • Adam Warren’s Master of Kung Fu? Still rejected. Early con reports confirm that Marvel does in fact hate joy.
  • In addition to the new Nick Fury ongoing by Brian Bendis and The Nightly News’s Jonathan Hickman, the events of Secret Invasion will also lead to the dramatic return of U.S. 1 by Dan Slott and Juan Bobillo, as well as an all-new ROM: Spaceknight series from Christos Gage and Leonard Kirk!
  • Marvel plans on returning the Educational Comic to bookstore shelves with a new historical series from their popular Marvel Adventures line of kids’ books. Writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon are probably more well-known for their Mature Readers fare, but the series promises to show off their talents in a way that we can learn from as well as enjoy:

 

 

DC Comics

 

  • Editor Jann Jones announced a new Johnny DC title: WORLD’S BEST FRIENDS by Tiny Titans’ Art Baltazar and Franco. Done in the style of the classic Haney/Aparo Brave and the Bold, the series will be a Krypto the Super-Dog team-up book that debuts with Rex the Wonder Dog in battle against Destructo!
  • Jann Jones will also be editing a new Brother Power the Geek revival by J. Torres and Rick Burchett, which she described as “a cross between Mannequin, Donald Sutherland’s scenes in Kelly’s Heroes and [Mickey Spillaine’s] I, the Jury.”
  • Breaking news from the hotel bar: After a respectable six Appletinis, DC honcho Dan Didio let it slip that Grant Morrison’s Batman: RIP will in fact end with the death of Bruce Wayne, who will be replaced under the cowl by a more brutal hero from the past: Jack Wheeler, the Quad Cities’ own Wild Dog!
  • And the biggest news from the convention…

  • With the opening of the Watchmen movie, DC’s going to be re-examining the groundbreaking series for the first time in over twenty years! It all starts in the pages of Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley’s Trinity, which will spin out into a weekly, four-issue mini-series by Keith Champagne and Scott McDaniel called Crisis On Earth-4, where the Big 3 take on a power-mad, world-dominating Dr. Manhattan for the sake of the multiverse.
  • Even better, the Watchmen Universe is going to be expanded with four one-shots timed for a weekly release in the run-up to the movie: Rorschach by Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee, Nite-Owl by Judd Winick and Ethan Van Sciver, Silk Spectre by writer/artist Terry Moore, and Ozymandias, by J. Michael Straczynski and Dale Eaglesham. All of this leads up to…
  • A new hardcover graphic novel: Tales of the Watchmen, by Geoff Johns and Alex Ross!

     

     

    At 96 pages, this will be Ross’s most ambitious work in ten years. Said Johns, “Our goal is to do exactly what Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons intended, using their story as a springboard to tell other fantastic tales of the characters in this world.”

 

Pretty exciting stuff, and we haven’t even hit the weekend yet! Stay tuned for more con news that you won’t be seeing anywhere else, only on the ISB!

 

*: Truth percentage may be slightly exaggerated.

The Improved Richie Rich

I hate Richie Rich.

I hate him so much, in fact that when I was having lunch with Dr. K yesterday, an offhand remark turned into a two-hour discussion of why I–and, as it turns out, the good Doctor–can’t stand the little oligarch. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that Richie, a kid known for doing things like building a little castle out of cash and playing football with a huge chunk of pure silver (and, of course, for having terrifying abs), throws around so much cash that it makes P. Diddy look like a Franciscan monk, and he does it with his friends who can’t even afford to buy a new pair of pants.

The only other explanation, and the one that I think we’re supposed to buy given the “Poor Little Rich Boy” tagline, is that Richie isn’t ostentatious, he just has absolutely no concept of the value of money. Seriously, that’s the better of the two possibilities, and imagining Richie’s blank stare as Freckles tries to explain why he doesn’t just sew hundred-dollar bills onto his jeans doesn’t do a whole lot to generate sympathy.

The only way you can make these stories work, then, is to do them with a character that understands a little something about loss, who learns the hard way that there are problems even improbably large safes full of gold coins can’t solve. Someone like…

Ah yes.

 

 

Much better.