‘Clone Wars’ Debuts on Cable October 3
The Cartoon Network has announced that the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars will debut on Friday, October 3 at 9 p.m. The first night will feature a one-hour special, kicking off the cable network’s Friday night block of new programming. The first hour that night will be offering a sneak peek at their new Secret Saturdays. The following week will be the new schedule with The Secret Saturdays (premiere episodes); Star Wars: The Clone Wars; Star Wars: The Clone Wars (premiere episodes); Ben 10: Alien Force (premiere episodes).
Lucasfilm kicked off audience anticipation for the new television series by releasing a feature film version in August. As of September 1, the film has earned a disappointing $30,672,432 along with lackluster reviews from professionals and kids alike. The movie hasn’t wowed them overseas either, taking in just $22,500,000.
Set during the Clone Wars between Episode II and Episode III, Lucas guarantees at least 100 thirty-minute episodes will be produced. Anakin and Obi-Wan will be featured prominently in the series, and Yoda, Count Dooku, Mace Windu, Palpatine, Padme, and General Grievous are also expected to appear. An entirely different voice cast came on board since the movie stars couldn’t necessarily commit to 100 episodes each. The series exposes the front lines of the intergalactic struggle between good and evil, The Grand Army of the Republic led by Yoda and the New Droid Army of the Separatists, respectively. (more…)
Chris Staros at Top Shelf sent out the follow news regarding a sale worth sharing:
Tarzan is returning to the Big Screen but not as an animated musical sequel from Disney but a played-for-straight adventure from Warner Bros, and director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy). Variety reports this morning that Sommers and Stuart Beattie will be co-writing the screenplay. The duo last worked together on 2009’s G.I. Joe film for Paramount, which recently completed lensing.
We just received word that The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is opening a retrospective in honor of Kim Deitch’s distinguished career. The exhibition will run from September 9 through December 5 at MoCCA in Manhattan.
Small press efforts are being recognized in 2009 at Canada’s SPACE show. Previously, there had been the Day Awayrd, selected and presented by Dave Sim in recognition of the work done by the late artist Gene Day. Sim withdrew the Award for 2009 and it has been replaced with the 
One of the surprise hits for Marvel this year was Kick-Ass, the series from Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. In addition to sell outs and multiple printings, it was optioned for a film prior to the first issue hitting the stands this past winter.
"Next week I’ll be in Toronto. I’m still trying to get my head around it. I just came back from New York actually where I was doing an independent film. I’ve gone from one side of the world to the other. My head is going crazy. I woke up this morning and said ‘Where am I?’ I looked out the window and saw the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and I’m like ‘Wow! How did I end up in Australia?’. Have you ever seen that film Jumper? It’s like I’m in Jumper."
Meantime, also in Australia, Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia was quoted by Showbiz Spy indicating his desire to play a decided adult Boy Wonder. "I always thought I would make a great Robin. I would love to be Christian Bale’s sidekick in Batman," he told the reporter. "Even when I was younger I never wanted to be Batman." Of course, director Christopher Nolan has already said for years now that his film version of the Caped Crusader will never feature a Wonder – boy, teen or adult.
As reported across the web and in today’s New York Times, Brad Meltzer has launched a campaign to raise funds to renovate and preserve the boyhood home of Jerome Siegel, co-creator of Superman. Starting today, a four week auction of items will begin with winners gaining original artwork, VIP seats to the Colbert Report, walk ons in comic books, novels and even an episode of NBC’s Heroes.
Today, Google will be launching their version of a web browser. Dubbed Chrome, it is said to be an open Source construct which began with the needs of today’s web users being taken into consideration. To make certain we understand why this is different than IE, Opera, Safari and Firefox, they hired Scott McCloud to produce a 35-page 
Warner Home Video has announced a sixth DVD box set in their Looney Tunes Golden Collection series. The new set will be released on October 21 with 60 classic, fully re-mastered and restored cartoons, presented in their original un-edited format. Most of the shorts in the collection have never been available on DVD before.
