Category: News

Pioneer comic book and newspaper strip artist George Tuska
died yesterday at the age of 93.

It’s hard to imagine an artist with a greater pedigree.
Beginning in 1939, George worked on such features as The Avengers, Black
Terror, Buck Rogers, Captain America, Captain Marvel (both Fawcett and Marvel), Challengers of the Unknown,
Doc Savage, Green Lantern, The Hulk, Iron Man, Justice League of America
(a.k.a. “The World’s Greatest Superheroes” newspaper stip), Luke Cage, Planet
of the Apes, Scorchy Smith, Sub-Mariner, Superboy, Superman, T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents, Teen Titans, Uncle Sam… and that merely scratches the surface.

George was a gentle man who once had taken the
extraordinary step of punching out well-known wiseass cartoonist Bob Powell
while working in the Eisner-Iger shop. Will Eisner said Powell, as brilliant an
artist as anybody in that hallowed shop, absolutely deserved it. The stuff of
legend.

On a personal note, George was drawing the Buck Rogers
newspaper strip during its final years, from 1959 to 1967. During that last
year, I was an unpaid intern at the National Newspaper Syndicate and was
allowed to contribute story concepts and ideas. As a 16 year-old, I was amazed
and thrilled to be working anywhere near
George Tuska.

Emma Caulfield (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Robot Chicken), Mouse Guard creator David Petersen, comic
book artist/writer David W. Mack and others weigh in on comics with spandex. Ever wonder what
comics out there aren’t about super-heroes? Hosted by Alan Kistler and
Jose Ramos!

Jon Sable returns in his latest adventure, Ashes of Eden. Sable is hired to deliver a diamond
and a girl safely to New York; a simple enough job if the rock wasn’t
the size of a bomb and the girl wasn’t Bashira– who, of course, is as
unbelievably gorgeous as she is completely spoiled rotten. Mike Grell writes and does the art, with John Workman lettering and yours truly coloring, assisted by Shannon Weaver and Matt Webb.

Published by ComicMix and IDW and available at finer comic shops everywhere– with the really good ones having a variant pencil sketch cover available as well.

MediaBistro reports that starting in less then an hour, Neil Gaiman and a thousand Twitter followers will write an audiobook script together on Twitter–an epic test to see if the Twittersphere can actually cooperate on a story.

The whole project starts on this Twitter page
at 12 noon EST. Gaiman will tweet the first line of a
story, and the Twittersphere will add the next sentences, continuing
the story in a round-robin style. To be included, your
addition to the story must be tagged #bbcawdio and be sent to the
correct Twitter page, like this:

<

p style=”text-align: center;”>@BBCAA Your Tweet Here #bbcawdio

Here’s more from BBC Audiobooks America:
“When roughly 1000 Tweets are logged, we’ll edit the contributions and
compile a script, then head into the studio to record and produce the
audiobook. The final audiobook will be downloadable free on our website
and also available as a digital download at iTunes and other audiobook
retailers.”

Doing the math, that should be about 130,000 characters, probably around 21,000 words, which is in the ballpark of an audiobook script.

Neil’s twitter feed, in case you don’t have it, is @neilhimself.

With 3-D all the rage, MGM announced over the weekend that Joss Whedon’s original thriller, The Cabin in the Woods, will be delayed from February 5 2010 to January 14 2011 to allow it to be upgraded to a three-dimensional chiller.

According to Shock Til You Drop, the film, co-written and directed by Drew Goddard (Cloverfield), will require six months for the conversion. The movie stars Bradley Whitford (The West Wing), Richard Jennings (Burn After Reading), Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek), and Whedon regulars Amy Acker (Angel, Dollhouse) and Tom Lenk (Buffy)

Two of Britain’s most popular actors have been cast in director John Landis’ Burke and Hare. According to Bloody Disgusting, Landis’ return to filmmaking will have him working with David Tennant, fresh off Doctor Who, and Simon Pegg, who gained acclaim in Star Trek.

The title characters are based on the famed 19th Century graverobbers who made a nice live providing corpses to an Edinburgh medical school. Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft (St. Trinian’s) have written the script based on the real life incidents involving the hapless Burke (Pegg) and Hare (Tennant). Given demand, the pair would try and hasten along the end for borders at the lodging house run by Hare’s wife.

Landis last directed Susan’s Plan in 1998 while Tennant just completed shooting the sequel to St. Trinian’s, also written by Ashworth and Moorcroft. Pegg guest starred on Doctor Who, but played opposite Christopher Eccleston’s version of the Time Lord.