Shel Dorf, once the letterer of Steve Canyon, and a founder of the San Diego Comic Convention, has been hospitalized since April and word is that he now needs permanent long-term care.

An e-mail from his friend Charlie Roberts has been circulating and is partially reprinted below:

“Wanted to let you know that Shel has been at Sharp Hospital in Kearny Mesa since April……yes, April (!)

“David Siegel called us Wednesday night about this, and my wife Joan and I went down to Shel’s home in Ocean Beach near San Diego on Thanksgiving where his brother Mike is moving everything out. I’ve known Mike since the 1980s, though it’s been some 20 years since I’ve seen him.

“Today Joan and I went with David Siegel to see Shel. He’s lost some weight and is fragile, but we had a brief and friendly visit with him. He’s extremely hard of hearing, and is apparently on pain medication but at least we were able to see him and he was glad to see us. The head nurse told us Shel will never be well enough to go home again, but otherwise he’s stable.

“Mike plans to eventually move Shel closer to a critical care hospital near Mike’s apartment in L.A. The visit to Shel’s was pretty emotional, as the first job I ever had in San Diego was helping Shel with his lettering on Steve Canyon, while Joan transcribed some of his interviews. We lived right around the corner from Shel from August 1983 to August 1987. I also made several trips to LA with Shel as unofficial photographer while he did his interviews, and got to meet some amazing people.

Those who’ve read his interviews or benefited from his early work in launching the San Diego Comic-Con off the ground might want to send him a card expressing best wishes at:

Sharp Hospital
7901 Frost Street
San Diego, CA 92123

Dorf has written about the people he’s met and experiences he’s had at Comic Artville Library.
 

Nickelodeon has created their own Comic Book Awards, inviting fans to come vote in eight different categories during the entire month of December.

The categories include Best Hair, Best Guest Character, Cutest Comic Character , Best Comic, Favorite Manga, Grossest Thing in Comics, Favorite Fantasy Graphic Novel and Favorite Comic Strip.  Nominees are an eclectic choice culled from comics, comic strips, graphic novels, and pop culture. Our toughest choice was for best hair, without Wolverine in the mix.  We opted for Veronica Lodge.

The winners will be announced at the website on March 17 and appear in the April issue of Nickelodeon magazine.
 

Piñata Games has named Justin Ziran as its Chief Executive Officer according to ICv2.  The company was founded in an attempt to buy HeroClix from Topps and is staffing while raising cash to make a formal offer.

Ziran is an experienced game exec, having worked in brand management and executive positions at WizKids, Wizards of the Coast, and Upper Deck, was most recently the Managing Director of business operations at WizKids.
 
Ziran’s wide-ranging experience in the gaming business encompasses such major brands as Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering, Pokémon, Vs. System, and WizKids’ Pocket Model line.

Director Darren Aronofsky told MTV that he would like to find the time to re-edit his Fountain feature film. “It wouldn’t be a ‘director’s cut,’” he told the site — “more like an alternate story told with the addition of unused footage from the first go-round. This would be a complicated project on a couple of levels, though, and it’s at least a few years away.”

The movie had a tortured path from script to screen with a detour when an early version became the source for the Vertigo graphic novel. It starred Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz but fizzled at the box office.

Currently on the road promoting The Wrestler, Aronofsky is sharing print time with star Mickey Rourke who also told MTV that he’s game for a return visit to Frank Miller’s Sin City.  The promised sequel has been tied up a fight between co-director Robert Rodriguez and the Directors Guild of America.

“Once that kerfuffle’s cleared up, though, the sequel could get underway pretty quickly. “Frank’s ready,” said Rourke. “And I’m ready, too.”

While no one expected Punisher: War Zone to be Oscar material, Lionsgate certainly hoped it would open better than it did this weekend.  The film, which received fairly uniform negative reviews, took in a mere $4 million, good for ninth place.  It was, though, the best performance for a new film this weekend, beating Cadillac Records by $500,000 according to Box Office Mojo’s estimates.

The preceding eight spots belonged to returning fare with the romantic comedy, Four Christmases returned to the top spot with $18,180,000 and $70.84 million after two weeks. Second place went to the vampire romance Twilight which found another $13, 197,000 revenue from the tweens.  Younger kids continued to thrill at Bolt’s adventures which saw an additional $9,696,000 in ticket sales.

For adults, Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman defied the critics and lured people to see Australia to the tune of $7 million, good for $30, 869,00 after two weeks.  Daniel Craig’s second turn as James Bond didn’t fare as well, with Quantum of Solace taking fifth place but losing 65% of last week’s audience and bringing home just $6.6 million.

Punisher’s per screen average of $1595 was anemic compared with more than twice that of the top performers. 2004’s Punisher actually opened much better with $13,834,527 and given the growing appetite for super-hero movies, the sequel’s dismal performance is a black mark for Marvel.

Lionsgate will be praying for a Christmas miracle and a stronger opening for the more heavily hyped Spirit film from Frank Miller on Christmas Day.  Marvel’s next offering is next May’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine which should have a huge opening.

The acclaimed anime Akira will make its Blu-ray debut on February 24 according to Bandai Entertainment. Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 science fiction tale will receive the deluxe treatment.

The disc, coming from Bandai’s Honneamise label, will retail for $49.98 and include both Japanese and English subtitles along with the English dub track, but purists should really enjoy the Japanese track, which will be presented in state-of-the-art 192 kHz 24-bit Dolby TrueHD 5.1ch sound. 
 
The initial pressing of the Akira BD will include a slipcase and a 32-page booklet.  Extras on the disc include two teasers, two trailers, a TV commercial and Otomo’s complete storyboards for the film.