Dirk responds to my needling yesterday by admitting that for one brief shining moment, 300 sold more copies than Naruto.

That said, I have to wonder at Heidi MacDonald’s just-linked post, where she attempts to beat me over the head with the fact that 300 landed at #18 on Publishers Weekly’s hardcover bestsellers list. And you can use this to measure against the sales of a paperback… how, exactly?

(Don’t get me wrong: It’s rare to see Heavily Networked Heidi taking a bold stance on anything, even if it’s only on the extent to which I suck. It’s a nice start, and I’d hate to discourage such behavior. Who knows? Perhaps one day, she’ll voice an opinion that might make one of her friends, industry colleagues or possible gossip sources frown a bit! One can only guess at the sort of interesting things she’d write after that happy day has dawned…)

I would be more impressed with Dirk’s salvo if he didn’t have 300’s ranking on the PW list wrong — it was #12 NOT #18 — and this week it’s #11.

I of all people know how many mistakes and typos you can make while late night blogging, but unless Dirk is one of those Monty Python types who automatically adds 6 to every number he says, his fighting technique this time out is pretty weak, and such sloppy reporting brings back my questions over his agenda. And this:

And you can use this to measure against the sales of a paperback… how, exactly?

was my EXACT point. While Bookscan is the most accurate gauge we have access to, it is not infallible. In fact, when it spits out results Dirk didn’t like, he was saying just the opposite

The dubious: Over at The Engine, Hibbs goes on to make claims that his presented figures simply cannot support. “Conclusion: for the most part, ‘art comix’ sell just as bad in the general bookstore market, as they do in the DM.” Don’t you believe it. Never mind that the portion of the bookstore market most likely to back non-genre works — independent bookstores — is the one most underrepresented by BookScan’s numbers. Likewise never mind the absence of Canada’s largest bookstore chain, Chapters (a significant market for Drawn & Quarterly, I’m led to believe), let alone the library market sum in toto. The real signifier that this claim is unsupportable comes from the simple fact that the bottom item on the list in question sold 4784 copies.

Never mind that independent bookstores are known in the actual publishing community as a weak source of sales for GNs. The facts go against Dirk’s Bold Stance, so they must be wrong!

The New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists were, until the advent of Bookscan, considered the bible of book sales. Both use different methods to arrive at their goals, and both are assumed to be a mix of magical juju and actual sales reporting. Are they as accurate? Not really. But they do represent publishing industry thinking, and any graphic novel landing on either of them is something to be noted and analyzed.

Both have different charts for hardcover and paperback sales. Now why is this? I suppose it’s because mass market paperbacks are generally racked separately. When trade paperbacks came along, they got their own sales charts. I’m sure much of the reason is so more publishers could have more bestsellers, but it’s also to differentiate them by price point, retail outlets and so on.

All of which is to say that Dark Horse was perfectly justified LAST WEEK in crowing over the fact that they had a bestselller. And Viz and Dark Horse should both go out there and talk about their bestselling books to book buyers and bookstore owners, librarians and even readers. I’m all for a critical reading of press releases (and we do it here on a regular basis) but you’d better get your facts straight or else it’s an agenda.

As for the last part of Dirk’s riposte, we’re always smiling on the outside and crying on the inside here at SBM. I *wish* all I got was frowns.

Now you can shove your rent check into an R2-D2 post office box and use your Darth Maul stamp to get it there! The US Post Office is releasing a series of 15 stamps to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars. The stamps will kick off the new 41¢ stamp price.

Actually, the USPS and Star Wars are teaming for all sorts of things, including the unfortunately-named USPS – Jedi Shipping and Mailing Master:

That certainly makes two-day mail very exciting!

Okay, THE HILLS HAVE EYES: THE BEGINNING is signed off on and off to Harper Collins, and we’re a bit knackered. We’ll be posting more when we wake up from our snooze, but in the meantime, here’s two great tastes that go together.

More “This is Sparta!” madness here (link NSFW, probably).

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS cover art. Click for larger.

Molly Crabapple hosts a night of burlesque and book signing more popularly known as DR. SKETCHY’S ANTI-ART SCHOOL! Indulge in the intelligent pleasures of cabaret life drawing with fetish goddess Zoetica Ebb. It matters not if you smudge charcoal, daub fingerpaint, ink flesh or transform sidewalks with three-dimensional chalk drawings – all are welcome at this celebration of fine lines.

Molly will be signing and illustratively amending copies of her new tome, DR. SKETCHY’S RAINY DAY COLOURING BOOK. This prestigious volume contains a wild permutation of swell and swollen ideas to tickle your fancy or at least teach you how to identify other’s fancies and tickle those as well. The book and the event compliment one another so as to transport you directly into the mind’s eye of La Crabapple and her traveling sidekicks. If you can hold a pencil, she can improve your evening.

DR. SKETCHY’S ANTI-ART SCHOOL
AT MELTDOWN COMICS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28 7 TO 10 PM
7522 Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90046

Man the announcements are coming fat and furious, as IGN’s Direct2Drive announces they will start selling downloadable Top Cow Comics.:

IGN Entertainment, a unit of Fox Interactive Media, today announced that its Direct2Drive (http://direct2drive.com) digital retail store has launched the Web’s first independent, download-to-own comic book store and will begin selling comic book titles from Top Cow Productions. The agreement marks the first time that users will be able to digitally download and own full-length comic books, and Direct2Drive anticipates the addition of content from more comic and manga publisher partners in addition to Top Cow over the next year.

The downloadable comic books will be delivered in high-resolution, full-color documents via Adobe Systems Incorporated’s Portable Document Format (PDF), enabling users to download, view and print the comic books on any standard Windows PC.

“Comic books are a perfect addition to our content library of digital games, anime, TV and movies as we continue to build the Web’s premier download store targeting the interests of men 18-34,” said Jamie Berger, Senior Vice President of Consumer Products for IGN Entertainment. “Top Cow is one of the comic industry’s most cutting-edge publishers and we’re proud to offer their content exclusively to the Direct2Drive consumer.”

”It’s never been a question of ‘will comics be available digitally’, but rather how and when,” commented Filip Sabik, Vice President of Marketing & Sales for Top Cow. “Top Cow has been looking for the right partner with which to launch online content. IGN is one of the premier pop culture sites on the web, and their model for digital distribution on Direct2Drive was the one that allowed us to deliver content to fans while not discounting our core retailer base. It’s a win win situation.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Direct2Drive will serve as the exclusive worldwide digital distributor of Top Cow Productions’ library of comics, with more than 400 total books from Top Cow available over the coming year. Top Cow titles available at launch on Direct2Drive will include Witchblade, The Darkness, Tomb Raider, and Rising Stars, with more added each week.

Pricing for Top Cow Comics on Direct2Drive will be similar to the volume pricing offered for Top Cow’s recent Compendium collections, as well as and other trade collections. Top Cow’s backlist will also be offered through Direct2Drive, with material up to a year old available for download.

Gizmodo is the vastly popular (according to Technorati it’s the #3 blog in the WHOLE WORLD) tech blog and it’s just started running GizComix:

So here’s something a little different. This is strip number one of our new original Gizmodo comics, written by yours truly and drawn by the super-talented Pedro Camargo, a member of the webcomix collective ACT-I-VATE. We’re really excited about this, so enjoy the first strip and keep your eyes peeled for more goodness in the future.

Act-i-vators will essentially be the “in-house” cartoonists for Gizmodo, which makes mucho sense. The blog gets popular content, the artists get mega exposure. Could this be the start of the new “comics page” on the web?

§ Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report: “Should we go to war with Iran? We only need 300 troops.”

§ Joel Silver says Wonder Woman is war at Rotten Tomatoes:

“For years now, Marvel’s just been kicking the DC Comics’ characters ass. They’ve been killing them. And look, I don’t know if that’s because the Marvel characters are more self deprecating and more they twist on the super hero character. But I mean, DC is the foundation of the super hero character. They’re where it came from. Watchmen is more in the Marvel direction, but I would hope that we can bring some of these DC characters. They’re doing the new Batman now, and I hope they can do another Superman, I hope we can figure out Wonder Woman, I hope they make Justice League. I hope we can do a lot of these characters, cause I think it’s good to get them out there, and I’d like to try to win that war.”

War — HUAGH.

§ Wizard yaks with cartoonist turned screenwriter Rob Shrab, whose SCUD THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN is coming back:

I started working on “The Sarah Silverman Program.” We did a pilot like a year and a half ago, and then we got picked up for six episodes and we started shooting them in the summer of 2006. At the beginning of the summer, Image called me up and said, “Hey, would you be interested in reprinting all of your Scud books?” I said, “Well, yeah. That would be great.” So I did a little digging, and I found all the pages because for some stupid reason all the original screens were burned up in Canada a couple of years ago. So there was a good chance that Scud was never going to exist again, but I tracked down all the pages and have been putting the book back together over the last couple of months.

§ Newsarama catches up with Yani Mentzas, Editorial Director and Executive Vice President of Vertical.:

Tezuka was part of our lineup from the get-go. In fact, our plan to publish Buddha was one of the reasons why Mr. Kidd, the design star, agreed to become our Art Director. One of Vertical’s founding ideas was to publish newly translated Tezuka on a regular basis. Tezuka Productions, however, made it very clear to us that we wouldn’t be acquiring any more titles from them until we proved ourselves with Buddha. Thankfully, the series did well, so we were permitted to publish more of the master. In terms of sales, the first volume of Buddha sold roughly the same amount as the first book of the Ring trilogy, the other flagship title of our debut year.

§ Newsarama also sits down with Jana Morishma, Diamond’s new Kids Comics czar:

About six years ago, the graphic novel industry used to complain that their books were getting lost, either racked on a few lonely shelves at the end of the science fiction section, or mixed in somewhere among the humor books. A couple of things happened to change this situation: first, retailers decided to create a separate section with signage that clearly indicated “Graphic Novels.” Having a critical mass of graphic novels in one bay (bookcase) in the bookstores helped increase the books’ visibility. Second, some publishers, like Tokyopop, created P.O.P. (point-of-purchase) displays that called out their books even more noticeably for consumers. Suddenly, graphic novel and manga sales started taking off, and over the past five years sales have grown an astonishing 400% (according to icv2.com, graphic novel sales were approximately $75 million in 2001, and were approximately $330 million in 2006).

I predict that we’ll see the same pattern occurring for children’s graphic novels. Retailers will create a distinct subsection labeled “Graphic Novels and Manga” in the children’s department, and suddenly kids who love comics and manga will know where to find their books. Publishers who are interested in focusing on the category will work harder to market their books with promotions such as displays, special offers, advertising, author signings, etc.

§ Derek McCulloch is interviewed about STAGGER LEE for the WaPo Express

“From everything that I’ve read, I go with the political interpretation that they were men representing pretty bitterly opposed political organizations, and they had some sort of argument of a political nature — eyewitnesses said so.” McCulloch said. “It escalated to the point of killing.”

(Reminder, we’ll be interviewing McCulloch and Shep Hendrix THIS FRIDAY at B&N here in NYC.)

§ Gilbert Hernandez has a new series coming out entitled SPEAK OF THE DEVIL at Dark Horse. What with Love and Rockets, and New Palomar, and his graphic novels, Gilbert seems pretty prolific these days.

Val Castillo is a young gymnast with a strange hobby—looking through her neighbors’ windows. At first, no one knows the identity of the neighborhood peeper, only that the suspect wears a devil’s mask.

When a friend discovers Val’s secret, he joins her into a dark journey of spying and discovery that includes peering into the bedroom of Val’s own father and stepmother. Intimate details of neighbors’ lives, better left quiet, become chatter and threaten all involved, eventually snowballing into a dark journey that even the strongest soul would not care to endure.

Speak of the Devil #1 features story and art from Gilbert Hernandez (Love & Rockets). The miniseries arrives on sale July 25.

§ Eric Powell’s THE GOON is also coming back at DH:

After a long hiatus from the regular series to work on The Goon: Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker graphic novel, Eric Powell, the mastermind behind The Goon is back! It’s been more than a year since Eric has written and drawn the ongoing adventures of his fan-favorite, award-winning antihero, and he aims to prove that the wait was worth it.

The brand-new story is the beginning of major upheavals in the Goon universe. The Zombie Priest and his latest abominations continue to plague the streets, but his madness and use of forbidden magic is drawing forces to Lonely Street that he may not be able to control. Plus the Goon comic is now offering 50% more poop jokes than all the Marvel and DC superhero titles combined. Suck on that, X-Men!

300 has landed at #12 on this week’s Hardcover Bestsellers list at Publishers Weekly. While it’s not the only listing for a graphic novel on a nationally recognized bestseller list (SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS charted a few years and ago and there have been others including, we believe, the ALIEN movie adaptation back in the day) it’s certainly a strong showing for the Dark Horse books.

We’re assuming Dirk hadn’t seen this when he castigates Dark Horse for their PR:

The following headline can currently be found on the Dark Horse homepage: “300 GRAPHIC NOVEL IS NUMBER ONE IN THE NATION!!!!!”

The 300 graphic novel is currently the #1 best selling graphic novel in the nation! Congratulations to Frank Miller and Lynn Varley!!!! Plus, a very special thank you to all the fans who have helped to make the book such a huge success.

The blurb is dated “Updated 3/23/07,” and I suppose it’s possible that Bookscan might be telling a different or more current story than, say, the USA Today listings. I hope so. I’d hate to think that Dark Horse, of all companies, doesn’t consider manga volumes to count as “graphic novels.”

We’d hate to think that Dirk is so in love with his manga that he ignores any evidence that goes against the worldview that he is hellbent on promoting each and every day. While we agree with him that it’s silly to ignore the huge success of manga, it’s equally silly to ignore the success of things that AREN’T manga…cuz it CAN happen y’know.

Maybe we’re jsut punchy, but this parody of Dean Haspiel’s Billy Dogma by Simon Fraser, Mike Fiffe and Dan Goldman was one of the funnest things we saw this week. The rest is NOT work safe, if you consider being attacked by a giant penis to be not work safe.

We are quite fond of the charming grotesqueries of of the work of Benjamin Roman (I Luv Halloween, Cryptics), so we were happy to see he’s launched a new webcomic, entitledMOTORFACE:
We’re not sure the MySpace blog interface is all that handy, but you should be able to add it to you RSS feeds.
[Spotted at Blog@Newsarama]

Big AP story on Virgin’s release of The Virulents, which is produced by creators in Bangalore, apparently. The story, which was picked up by the Washington Post and USA Today, includes a slideshow of the making of the book.

“It’s one of the biggest entertainment markets with 55 percent of the population – 550 million people – under the age of 20,” Suresh Seetharaman, president of Virgin Comics, told The Associated Press in Mumbai. “Virtually all the art is created here. We have a team of 120 in Bangalore.”

“An American reading it has no idea it was not written down the road from where he lives,” added Larry Lieberman, Virgin Comics chief marketing officer. “He has no idea it is written, conceived and illustrated in India, in Bangalore.”

[snip]A recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, released earlier at the Mumbai conference, projects India’s media and entertainment business to more than double over the next five years to hit $22.5 billion in sales by 2011. Sales touched nearly $10.4 billion in 2006, up 20 percent from a year ago.

Virgin is all over the place with this story, as well, news of a graphic novel starring the Masked Magician, who’s tell-all TV specials incurred the ire of fellow magicians.

Now, Nash Entertainment CEO Bruce Nash hopes to turn the Masked Magician into a fictionalized franchise, starting with the novel. Nash hopes ultimately to use the novel as the basis for a feature film.

“I didn’t think just having the specials was enough to show the studios that this could be turned into a real dramatic narrative,” Nash said. “So we went to Virgin with the idea of turning it into a graphic novel, and they loved it. Once it’s produced and distributed, we’ll take it to the studios and networks with the idea of turning it into a movie or TV show. The graphic novel will be sort of like the first script.”

The novel will revolve around the fictional magician, on the lam from the law. The character dons a mask to protect himself and begins using magic to solve crimes — and attempt to redeem himself from whatever past he’s trying to escape. Taking a cue from the real-life specials, the book and movie will show how the masked magician actually conjures up his illusions.

Hm, using a graphic novel as the “pilot” for a film…what a great idea!

Well, crap, now they can squeeze a whole elephantman into a mobile phone! How do they do that? Oh it’s a COMIC BOOK by Richard Starkings and Moritat. In fact, interested parties might want to check out the Gocomics website and see what all they are distributing–the march of progress.

uclick has announced an exclusive agreement with comic book publisher Active Images to distribute its popular ELEPHANTMEN line of comic books on mobile phones.

The mobile product line will debut in early summer with comic books and wallpapers starring the series’ larger-than-life characters.

“Whether readers are aware of it or not, ELEPHANTMEN and HIP FLASK were designed from the ground up to be digital media friendly,” said writer/creator Richard Starkings. “Moritat and I are very happy to be working with uclick Mobile, and can’t wait to see our work on the small screen!”

ELEPHANTMEN is an ongoing monthly published by Image Comics. The series takes place in a not-too-distant dystopian future in which an insidious corporation known as MAPPO genetically manufactured intelligent hybrids of humans and animals as super soldiers to fight in a New World War. Decades after their liberation, the hybrids have been integrated into human society.

Starkings originally created the character Hip Flask, an anthropomorphic hippopotamus, to serve as the mascot for the Comicraft library of comic book fonts. The character was soon featured in his own comic book mini series, before jumping into Image Comics’s ELEPHANTMEN.

(more…)

As long rumored, Lego is following up its highly successful Star Wars Lego video game franchise with the Caped LegoBrick Crusader himself!

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and TT Games will bring LEGO® BATMAN™: THE VIDEOGAME to next-generation and current generation platforms and the PC in 2008 with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment serving as the game’s North American publisher, including all sales and distribution functions.

In LEGO BATMAN: THE VIDEOGAME, TT Games brings the world of DC Comics’ Caped Crusader to life in an entirely new way. Players can explore a richly interactive LEGO Gotham City as Batman and Robin, capturing infamous villains – and even take control of the villains themselves.

“Batman spans several generations as one of the most popular DC Super Heroes, and LEGO BATMAN will appeal to several generations of gamers who grew up idolizing the Dark Knight and playing with LEGO toys,” said Samantha Ryan, Senior Vice President, Development and Production, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Working with TT Games, we are confident they will continue their LEGO games’ success with this title, and we will expand our publishing endeavors with the introduction of the LEGO BATMAN franchise.”

“We’re sure our fans will be excited to know that we have the same fantastic team at Traveller’s Tales responsible for LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Star Wars II working on LEGO BATMAN,” said Tom Stone, Director of TT Games Publishing.

“There’s a special magic to the LEGO incarnation of Batman that makes him accessible to a younger generation of his fans,” said Paul Levitz, President, DC Comics. “We look forward to the videogame version extending this fantasy.”

The LEGO BATMAN: THE VIDEOGAME story unfolds with Batman’s greatest foes escaping from Arkham Asylum and creating mayhem throughout Gotham City. Tracking criminals, including The Joker and The Penguin, players will utilize Batman’s gadgets as well as build and operate fantastic vehicles in one or two player cooperative gameplay.

It started when Glenn Hauman (him again!) wrote the following about last weekend’s I-Con:

Friday night, while I was escorting a number of actresses from the annual Destinies Mystery Guest show at I-Con, we were forced to go through a crowd of LARPers to exit the building.

The smell was, shall we say, pungent. And that’s being polite. I’ve smelled better rotten meat and curdled milk. The comments between us after we could breathe again were savage.

Now, the case of Black Plague we had earlier this year rendered our sense of smell inoperable which sounds great (we also lost our sense of taste, which was not great) — especially for our trip to NYCC. We thought this was the best-smelling big con we’d ever been to before we remembered that we couldn’t smell anything anyway. Because you know, at some point in our con-going years we’ve all wandered into the Waft of Death. The WoD is not exclusive to comicons — It also is scented at concerts, post offices, the VA. But it seems to happen very often at nerd-esque gatherings.

Well, along comes Mike Chary at Howling Curmudgeons to say stinky is peachy:

No, you idiot, attractive women are not laughing at them because of their hygiene. They are laughing at them because they are stupid, shallow actressses who don’t realize they are at a crowded con with limited ventilation, and are not used to being in such a place, and their guide, a stupid, shallow columnist, doesn’t realize that like all crowded venues with limited ventilation (rock concerts, sporting events, gyms, night clubs) such a circumstance will result in some body ordor issues regardless of the deodorants used. Especially on the second day of a con with people engaged in the physical activity of live action role-playing. Your complaint is like coming in with a group of actresses to half-time of a high school basketball game and complaining about the odor in the locker room.

Mike, I hate to tell you this, but those girls were laughing because the LARPers smelled. What’s this about “SECOND DAY”. That meant SECOND SHOWER OF THE CON! Esp. if you’re going to go LARPing around in body armor. Yes yes, we know inside armor it gets stinky and moldy — that’s why those hygiene-loving Spartans didn’t wear armor!* — that is why you shower often, and douse yourself with Polo before a joust. Come on now, that’s just common sense. So the moral of the story is: clean up your spoor!

As for the speculation over the odor in a high school girl’s locker room, it smells like heaven and everyone knows that.

[LARPing photo taken from the Maine Adventure Society website, on our family compound, and The Beat has LARPEd with some of those chaps and they smelled okay, even after a brisk campaign.]

*Actually they did but that wouldn’t have been as hot.

Because the world needs more videos of otters floating around holding hands.

[Via Cute Overload]

We never actually went any where, but we’re back in the metaphorical saddle, at least for today. We can barely type straight, as our typo-ridden postings of last show, but we’re alive and in more or less one piece.

To make up for the absence of our usual rigor, here are pictures of always-adorable Rosario Dawson and sexy Carla Gugino from the GRINDHOUSE premiere the other night. GRINDHOSUE is of course the double feature by comics-loving directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. (You can see these two badboys pick their favorite movie posters here.)

BTW, we hear Tarantino will be making a special appearance at Jim Hanley’s Universe from 12-1pm this SATURDAY (March 31).

As for Rodriguez, he’s talking SIN CITY 2 again…and SIN CITY 3, even!

Rodriguez says Sin City 3 will revolve around the Sin City graphic novel “Hell and Back”, the story of a brooding artist named Wallace who is drugged repeatedly and wanders through the story hallucinating. With this new story may come some exciting new castmembers too. Rodriguez says Johnny Depp may play Wallace.

Rodriguez is also looking to get his old pal Antonio Banderas in Sin City 3. Antonio apparently told Robert he’d play anything in the movie he was so excited about it. “I’ll be the hunchback,” Banderas said. So Frank Miller and Rodriguez are looking through the cast trying to find a place he might fit.

Banderas and Depp? To the Google Image Search-mobile, Robin!

It’s true! While Cap’s shield has been bequeathed to truth-seeker Stephen Colbert, his mantle as icon of American Freedom and democracy has been taken up by the blood thirsty killer know as THE PUNISHER. IS THIS REALLY WHAT OUR GREAT NATION HAS COME TO?

Captain America is dead. Long live…the new Captain America!?!?

Castle is adopting a whole new patriotic costume in the pages of Punisher War Journal as this buzz-worthy title is sure to turn heads in the coming months. Punisher War Journal #7 will see the Punisher in his new costume taking on the old Captain America villain Hate-Monger and will feature 50/50 covers by Young Guns Reloaded artist Ariel Olivetti – one with the classic costume and one with his new star-spangled threads.

The creative team behind Punisher War Journal have been praised for bringing Frank back to the mainstream Marvel Universe in nothing but thoroughly entertaining stories. Writer Matt Fraction, the writer quickly making a name for himself with Punisher War Journal and co-writing the smash-hit The Immortal Iron Fist with Ed Brubaker, and Ariel Olivetti, the bourgeoning artistic talent who was recently named one of the Young Guns Reloaded, have put the Punisher back in the spotlight and super-villains back into the Punisher’s crosshairs.

Steven G. Saunders of SilverBulletComicBooks.com says, “This is solid Punisher, with Matt Fraction treating the character of Frank Castle with the love and respect he deserves…Coupled with the great art, I see great things for this title in the future.”

A.C. Hall of PaperbackReader.com says “Fraction has an incredible understanding of The Punisher and writes him brilliantly.”

The first two issues of Punisher War Journal have sold out and gone back to press as this new ongoing title continues to heat up. And things are about to go nova when Frank adopts a new costume which may signal the arrival of a new Captain America. You’ve been warned – Punisher War Journal is a book to watch in the coming months.

If you’re one of those people who goes around pitching comic book movies in Hollywood, we’re willing to bet that “It’s the next 300!” may have been uttered in your presence a time or two, maybe even by you. IESB.net weighs in with this bizarre, seemingly PR-fed tale of a bidding war for a graphic novel deemed to be the Next 300!

IESB Exclusive! With the success of WB’s 300, studios are scrambling to find other graphic novel properties that will translate well onto the big screen. Reliable studio sources are revealing that the upcoming graphic novel “War in Heaven” is being targeted for quick development by several studios.

ImageTrac 2 Media, is developing a feature film adaptation of the forthcoming comic book series “War in Heaven.” The project has been dubbed “the next 300.” The comic book series, created by producer Jeff Krelitz, is scheduled to be co-written by screenwriter Craig Fernandez, fresh off adapting Arthur C. Clarke’s Time’s Eye for Sci-Fi Channel and comic book legend Keith Giffen. Ex Machina co-creator and Eisner award winning artist Tony Harris is drawing the book.

Talk of the town is that several major comic book publishers, one being D.C. Comics, along with several studios were vying for the rights to “WAR IN HEAVEN” this past weekend.

Yes, it’s the talk of the town! We can see DC getting into a bidding war right about now, for sure. As you can see from the art, it is the next 300, because Tony Harris draws just like Frank Miller!