But wait, there’s more! Austin, TX’s annual indie comics fest STAPLE! takes place at the Monarch Event Center this Saturday starting at 11. Guests include Eric Powell, Brian Wood, Danielle Corsetto, David Malki, Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub.

Of course there will be both pre and post parties:

As has become tradition the STAPLE! Pre-party will be held Friday night at Austin Books and Comics at 5002 North Lamar Boulevard. Festivities begin at 8pm and run till 11, but feel free to come in early and browse!

This year’s after-party will be held at Red’s Scoot Inn at 1308 E. 4th Street (4th and Navasota), just a few blocks east of I-35. Once again there will be a Live Art Show, another staple of STAPLE!, and the whole thing is a benefit for KOOP Radio!

Sounds like fun — take pictures and send ‘em to us!

The long running annual indie comics fest SPACE takes place this weekend in Columbus, OH. The entire guest list is up at the link but it includes special guest Dave Sim, along with Matt Dembicki, Matt Feazell, Jim Rugg, Carol Tyler, Steve Hamaker, Nate Powell, Frank Santoro and many many more.

The show kicks off with a big whoop-tee-do tonight. Details in the link.

Okay, here’s a new one to rally behind: Ming Doyle’s treatment for the little discussedMartha Wayne.
Much other good stuff at the site of this up-and-comer.

[Thanks to Eric for the link.]

Yes, we know, it was a Desmond episode. But how to describe what happened to Desmond last night in a tease without giving anything away until after the spoilers (since people seem to be sensitive about those things)?

Instead, we’ll give the pre-jump props to Daniel Faraday, the physicist who is now a lot more important to the overall plot of the show than we all thought after his introduction a few episodes ago.

MASSIVE SPOILERS await. You were warned.
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Dick Hyacinth has finally compiled the 100 best reviewed comics of last year using a weighted chart. There was a preliminary list, but this takes The Comics Journal picks into account. The top 10:

1. Exit Wounds (1085)
2. Shortcomings (941)
3. All Star Superman (908)
4. I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets (850)
5. Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (660)
6. Criminal (640)
7. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 (541)
8. Alias the Cat (452)
9. Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto (444)
10. Powr Mastrs (439)

Hyacinth has commentary in the link and the list has sollid choices top to bottom. Honestly, now, is this a golden era for comics or what?

The Macomb Daily reports on the first day of testimony in the trial of accused killer Michael George. Eight witnesses were called to weave a tale of George’s reported “weird” behavior surrounding the killing:

Joyce Selke said Michael George, who once sold insurance, met with her and her husband about purchasing life insurance for about $130,000, the same amount George had on Barbara George.

“It was such a large amount we couldn’t believe he said that much,” Selke said on the stand. “My husband and I were shocked that he suggested that amount. … He laughed and said that’s how much he has on Barb.”

Also: George and future wife, then girlfriend Renee were spotted kissing three to four weeks after the killing.

Full details in the link. More in the Detroit News.

Bonus for the tabs: A sex-tape of George will NOT be put into evidence.

Todd Klein reports that a second printing of his print of “The Alphabets of Desire” by Alan Moore will soon be available.

The second printing of “Alphabets of Desire” will go on sale at 1 PM Eastern Time, Thursday March 6th. This second printing of 500 differs from the first printing in two ways, as shown above: Alan has signed them in either blue or black ballpoint, instead of the red ballpoint used on the first printing. And in the small type along the right edge I’ve added the words “2nd printing Jan. 2008″. They are otherwise identical to the first printing. The first printing sold out in less than three days. I have no idea how quickly this one will sell, but be forewarned. At this time I’m limiting sales to a maximum of three copies per person/order, to give as many people as possible a chance to buy them. If copies are still available after March 24th, you can reorder.

Everyone has been very, very sad that dear, dear Gerard Butler didn’t end up with a role in WATCHMEN, although he and director Zack Snyder had professed their undying love for one another many times. However, all is not lost! Empire reports that Butler will voice the captain in an anime-style cartoon of “Tales of the Black Freighter” the comic-within-the-comic. This is planned as a bonus feature on the DVD, but may still be excerpted in the film if it works narratively, Snyder says. As for Butler, he joins the long queue of WATCHMEN fans:

“I actually read the script before reading the comic book and I thought it was awesome,” continued the 38 year-old. “Then I read the comic book and it’s great. The little bits that have been added define it so much more. It’s very dark and there’s just something so descriptive and scary. It’s this descent into madness but explained in such a sane way that you totally feel it yourself. By the end, my heart was pumping!”

Good news, but can he possibly top Nina Simone? Doubtful.

§ Johnny Bacardi presents an entire Warren story by Archie Goodwin and Steve Ditko.

§ We had previously blanked on this fine report by Mike Cavallaro on life at the Deep Six Studio:

The studio makes falling off somewhat difficult. Checking your email is likely to produce a sarcastic, “how’s that page comin’?” from across the room. Obsessively over-noodling will cause a roomful of verbal whips to crack. For as much goofing around that goes on there, you’re still more likely to get work done than you are to doze off (Dean’s music insures against the latter, anyway).

§ Tim Broderick tries to categorize comics in a more useful way than the whole indie/mainstream/superhero thing we’ve been going on about for days.

Here’s what I mean. You, as a comics creator, are an independent agent. You need to approach all this as a business and you need to protect your own interests. You also need to figure out who your market is and the best way to get your work in front of those people.

Unless you choose the self-publishing route, that means you need a business partner in the form of a publisher of some sort. Forget superhero and art comics – I wish we would just get rid of those terms all together. Here’s the terms I use, and they’re not a label for me or my work. They describe who I might do business with

§ We spaced on the fact that David Welsh has moved his Flipped column on manga to The Comics Reporter.

§ Our big-ass Dave Sim post drew many responses across the ‘net, of which perhaps the best were Leigh Walton, Tom Spurgeon and Valerie D’
Orazio. Val’s was actually a response here on the post, but we wanted to draw attention to it. Actually, thanks to everyone for the almost uniformly high-level discussion that took place here.

§ IGN has the new Iron Man Trailer in high def.

§ Should there be a VENTURE BROS. feature film? Hell yes!

Really, the fact that one of the show’s creators, Jackson Publick, worked on both the animated and live-action offerings of The Tick should be enough. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. In case you’re ignorant to the ways of the Ventures … The show is a spoof of the retro series Jonny Quest, and parodies much more than just father and son Quest — it takes on media from Indiana Jones and Scooby Doo to that light-saber Internet kid. The show focuses on the Venture family — super-scientist Dr. Venture, sons Hank and Dean, and his bloody tough and unstoppable bodyguard and reluctant friend, Brock Samson. They are constantly having to deal with a number of dastardly assailants, the most determined being Dr. Venture’s arch-enemy — The Monarch. He’s an ineffectual villain who has the heart of Dr. Girlfriend — a paramour with the body of a goddess and the voice of a fat and hairy henchman. It’s just comic gold.

§ Freddie Highmore, of The Spiderwick Chronicles, will voice Astro Boy in the upcoming CGI feature.

We’re so excited we made a special glitter logo! Squee!

After all the deep thots around here of late, cleanse your palette with this hilarious page.

:

Multimedia reading and performance
Plus! Dazzling dancer Fuschia FoXXX! (Voted one of the Stranger’s “Sexiest Citizens”!) Scantily-clad boy AND girl sirens, including Holly Chernobyl! (Also voted one of the Stranger’s “Sexiest Citizens”!) Chocolate kisses! More!!

Thursday, February 28, 7pm
Bailey/Coy Books
414 Broadway Ave. E. (across from QFC)

Thursday night, Adrian’s at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, sponsored by the Harvard Bookstore.

Last night, he addressed a SRO crowd at the Librairie Drawn and Quarterly. It was the first time I had seen Adrian’s slide show for Shortcomings. All I can say is, do not miss this slide show. I know, I know, I’m his publicist, but the slide show is charming, funny, reflective, and self-critical. It provides a stripped-down view into his process as an artist–from the way he constructs a page to how he tries to learn from his critics, peers, heroes and himself.

The Macomb Daily covers opening day:

Kaplan, chief of special prosecutions, conceded the case against George is almost all circumstantial, as he will show George at the time of the killing had had an affair with one woman two years earlier and was having an affair with the woman to whom he is now married, Renee George. Michael George wanted a smooth divorce, but Barbara George, 32, a Warren native, didn’t want to get divorced and would make a divorce hard for him, Kaplan said.

“Barbara George wasn’t happy in the marriage but wanted to make the marriage work for the (two) children,” Kaplan said.

The defense counters:

The defense acknowledges their client is flawed but was not at the store at the time of the slaying. Instead, he was lying on a couch at his mother’s Hazel Park home some 15 miles away.

“There is simply no – zero, zip, nada – physical evidence … placing Michael George at the scene,” defense attorney Joseph Kosmala told jurors in his opening statement. “Justice is not served by convicting the wrong man.”

The prosecution will call about 40 witnesses, the defense, 7. The case is beginning to garner some attention in the mainstream media and will be featured on NBC Dateline at some point, we’re told.

The Hero Initiative, a charity formed to help creators in need, announces a new initiative starting with a print by Frank Cho tyat was to have been signed by Cho and Steve Gerber before his death:

So it was with alla that in mind that we concocted FOOG, TOO! or “Friends Of Ol’ Gerber,” too. (Your miraculous Interweb will tell you all you wanna know about the original FOOG if ya wanna look it up.) We were gonna create several Gerber-centric products under the FOOG, TOO! banner that would help fund Hero (and thereby, also help Steve out financially in his convalescence). The first outta the gate was scheduled to be this super-cool Frank Cho Howard-and-Beverly print seen here. Working with our pals at Marvel, we got some new Frank Cho/Jason Keith art, and got these suckers printed up. Frank and Steve were slated to sign ’em, and ¡voila! Instant fundraiser product.

The prints will be available at the HERO booth or via AtomicComics.com.

Fox 2000 has optioned the phenomenally successful WIMPY KID books. Nina Jacobson will produce. According to the article, five books are eventually planned, with Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw to be published later this year.

What do I think of Dave Sim? I think he’s one of the world’s greatest living cartoonists. You can use that as a pull quote, like this.

“One of the world’s greatest living cartoonists.”
–Publishers Weekly

Go ahead. It’s true. Through 30 years of Cerebus he proved himself a craftsman, writer and artist with a vision unsurpassed. His comedic timing, inventive storytelling, expressive lettering, humane, nuanced characters, and epic world-creation…all unsurpassed.

Like many great artists, Dave Sim is also a complex, nuanced human being. But alas, he’s also something of a philosopher, and as most agree, as Cerebus went on, it became increasingly engrossed with these philosophical concerns, to the detriment of storytelling dynamics.

And the bottom line is that, just as the anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Richard Wagner will always be an asterisk to their great artistry, so will Dave Sim’s narrow-minded philosophical concerns always provide the asterisk to a great career.

That’s the short version. If you want more…plunge on, brave, brave Concorde.
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New York Mag’s Vulture bloginterviews Jeff Smith today and they bring up where he sees himself on the spectrum of comics:

[Q:]This fall, a mini-debate popped up on comics Websites about the Best American Comics anthology. Heidi MacDonald, who writes the Beat, asked why more of the comics in that book didn’t tell great stories, and she specifically cited you as the kind of writer who is conspicuously absent from anthologies like this. And the debate about Bone in particular is continuing even this week. Do you think that there really is still a great split in the comics world between art comics and pop comics?

[A:] Yeah, I do. I’m not sure I’m too concerned about it. When you work in comics, you’re kind of used to lines in the sand. From the time you’re a kid, you’re kind of raised in this either/or type of a mind-set with comics: If you like Marvel comics, you can’t like DC comics. If you like superhero comics, you can’t like indie comics. There’s kind of like — I believe — a false dichotomy which puts a Chris Ware at one end and Bone at the other. But I don’t think one is more valid than the other. What are you going to do? It’s high art versus low art. You’ve got Chris Ware, who is Beethoven, and you have me. I’m the Beatles. One’s not better than the other. They’re just making different music.

If this doesn’t settle it, this isn’t the internet.

Oops…

§ While IRON MAN has been everywhere from the Super Bowl to Lost, this year’s INCREDIBLE HULK movie has had relatively little publicity. This may not be a bad sign: one theory we’ve heard is that Marvel wanted to concentrate on IRON MAN and was waiting to roll out Hulk materials. It looks like this might be started, as Empire has a few pictures in it’s new issue. Including the above of Edward Norton about to Hulk Out.

§ Those of you who were in deep mourning that the Justice League movie seemed to be one of the tragic victims of the writer’s strike can now rejoice and click heels as you walk down the street. Verily, it has risen again:

Scribes Kieran and Michele Mulroney are busy polishing up the script, which is expected back at the studio in several weeks, and the cast has been advised to keep training for their superhero roles. Director George Miller is in pre-production in Australia.

Adam Brody, cast as the Flash, is the biggest star in the superhero lineup. Rapper Common nabbed the Green Lantern role; other roles went to lesser-known thesps such as Armie Hammer Jr. (Batman) and Megan Gale (Wonder Woman).

According to Variety, WB was anxious to get the movie schedded again because it, like many other studios, has a 2009 movie drouth due to the strike, with only WATCHMEN, TERMINATOR 4 and WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE on tap for the year, and two of those (guess which) are risks.