You have to give James Farr credit.  Entirely on his own, he has turned his dream project, Xombie, into a mini-franchise. The series about Dirge, a conscious zombie and his faithful dog originally appeared as ten webisodes entirely written, drawn and animated by Farr.  As it gained attention, he expanded, penning a novel adaptation (complete with foreword by the legendary Forrest J. Ackerman) and signed a deal with Devil’s Due in 2006 for comic books as Xombie:  Reanimated.

Now, Farr reports that Halo-8 Entertainment has planned a limited theatrical release of the animated series prior to releasing the episodes on DVD. Already there have been over thirteen million downloads of the webisodes so the release comes with some level of audience recognition but clearly this will extend the brand’s reach.

"Xombie is a blast!" said Matt Pizzolo, President of Halo-8. "James Farr has a fresh and engaging storytelling voice that’s amplified by his inventive production style. It’s a rare mix that breathes life (and undeath) into his fun and compelling characters. We’ve been fans of his work for a while now, and we’re really excited to work with him and the great team at Xombie, Inc."

"As the first sentient zombie in an animated series, Xombie provides a completely new twist to the horror genre, which is why it has resonated so well with the fans," said John Frank Rosenblum, Xombie ‘s Executive Producer. "Halo-8, a distributor with a true love for horror, is the perfect partner for expanding this unique property into a whole new market."

"Xombie is my attempt to inject something new and fun into an often over-mined genre," said Farr. "I am thrilled it has gotten such a huge response and that the characters have endured so long. Dirge and his friends are very close to my heart, and thanks to Halo-8, I get to share them with a brand new audience."

Producer Epic Level Entertainment is currently developing a live-action Xombie adaptation.

BOOM! Studios have announced that their upcoming trade paperback, Warhammer: Crown of Destruction, includes an exclusive in-game item for Mythic Entertainment’s critically acclaimed MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Each copy of Warhammer: Crown of Destruction, written by Kieron Gillen (Phonogram), and drawn by newcomer Dwayne Harris, contains a unique code to unlock the Book of BOOM!, a special item said to have an explosive effect on a player’s character.

"I’m so happy to bring together the fans of Warhammer gaming and Warhammer comics," said BOOM! Studios’ Games Workshop editor Ian Brill in a release.  "BOOM! is all about telling stories with visual art, conveying our tales of adventure and human drama as comics.  Video games are interactive stories, and while their interfaces may differ from ours, the goal of escapism and fun is still present.  This promotion is meant to expose readers of comics and video games to see what the other side has to offer."

Warhammer: Crown of Destruction is BOOM! Studios’ third series from the blood-soaked Warhammer battlefield.  Greatsword Frohlich, last seen in Forge of War, leads his men into a clash with the bloodthirsty Skaven.  What seemed like just another test of Sigmar’s power reveals itself to be more.

Sometimes I even confuse myself, and I think I’ve just done it with that sub-head. These three books are all the fourth volumes of their series, all things I reviewed before, and all from Yen Press (because they and Del Rey are the most consistent at sending me books for review – hint, hint, other manga publishers).

Alice on Deadlines, Vol. 4
By Shiro Ihara
Yen Press, November 2008, $10.99

I’ve reviewed all three of the previous books in this series: one, two, three. And I’ve enjoyed them each slightly less than the one before, as the series wandered away from its lecherous-angel-of-death-wreaks-havok-on-the-life-of-a’”normal”-teenage-girl premise into more generic monster-fighting, evil-corporation, and true-love lands.

Lapan is that angel of death I mentioned – shingami, to be more Japanese about it – and Alice is the nubile young woman whose body he is currently inhabiting, and cladding in unlikely underwear almost as often as he’d like. Alice was bounced out to a skeleton in the first volume, but she’s off in the spirit realm as this book opens – spending a season dead, more or less – and returns later on. There are a number of other characters, including, in this book, several members of the Tsurukame family, which owns and runs the corporation that sends out the shingami. They, confusingly, also seem to be part of the natural order of things, so perhaps the Tsurukames are subcontracting from whatever gods are behind everything.
 

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Emma Thompson has told MTV she’s ditching Hogwarts for her London job.  When confronted with a scheduling conundrum, reprising Professor Sybil Trelawney in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or shooting the second of the Nanny McPhee films, she had to make a choice.

“I’m making my own Nanny McPhee next year,” she declared. “They mean much more to me.”

Thompson wrote and starred in the 2005 film, based on Christianna Brand’s Nurse Matilda novels.  She always envisioned the project as a trilogy and the second film was well along before Potter’s two-part adaptation of the final J.K. Rowling novel was determined. 

“The working title is Nanny McPhee and The Big Bang,” she said. “It’s not a sequel, actually, it’s a new story.

“[The second film] is set one hundred years later; the only thing that is the same is Nanny McPhee. It’s about two families: A family of country children, and a family of town children, [both] during the war. So it’s about evacuees, and the father is away at war. So this time, the lone parent is the mother. That’s what it’s about: The big war, and a war between these two sets of extremely different children.”

“The Harry Potters are great big franchises that are something I’m not emotionally attached to or necessarily particularly creatively attached to,” Thompson said. “That’s more like doing a turn, whereas the Nanny McPhees are something I’ve written. The art is in those films, they’re very handmade, they’re something that’s very close to me. Those are the ones I really care about.”

No word on who will replace the actress for the films.