After the past two weeks, I think I’m seriously burned out on political chatter for now. And as it’s sort of a “between” time here at the Riggs Residence, with Robin’s DC work all out in shops and his IDW assignment not debuting for two months, I haven’t gotten terribly worked up over comics lately. (It doesn’t help that I have three months’ worth of DC comp boxes yet to read.) I adore September, particularly weather-wise, but I also think we’re in kind of a weird few weeks of stasis, with the baseball playoffs and the new TV season and lots of other things just over the horizon but not quite here yet.

So, what to discuss this week? By the end of last weekend I was still clueless, then Montezuma had a bit of revenge so I’m not feeling as creative as I’d hoped when meeting the Dreaded Deadline Doom. Fortunately, being married to an artist, I’ve learned that when you can’t dazzle ‘em with brilliance or baffle ‘em with bull, you can always point to the pretty pictures!

My friend and Aquaman maven extraordinaire Laura Gjovaag has started a series on her blog called Camera Phone Zen, her take on Jon Stewart’s "moments of zen" from The Daily Show. Up until now I haven’t been big on taking pictures using my phone — heck, as readers may recall I can’t even text, I’m one of those weird 20th century people who uses her telephone for, you know, phone calls. But small as it is, my digital camera still takes up enough room in my hip pack (yes, New Yorker and proud of it, my commuting uniform pretty much consists of work clothes, sneakers and hip pack) that I don’t feel like schlepping it around every day. And once I get the hang of how to actually snap the photo at the right moment, I’ll probably get a lot better with the camphone. (more…)

Although he arrived first in 1973, Heathcliff was pretty quickly eclipsed as king of the cartoon cats by Garfield, who arrived just five years later.  Created by George Gately, the strip was filled with gentle humor and was quickly added to papers turning him into a quiet star. The strip can be found in over 1000 newspapers via the Creators Syndicate.

After Gately passed away, the strip as taken over by his nephew, Peter Gallagher in 1998. Now, FitzRoy media has signed a comprehensive licensing deal with Gallagher that will include  animated feature films, direct-to-DVD releases and location based entertainment projects.

The tabby has previously been seen in animated form starting with a 1980 animated series from Ruby-Spears which is noteworthy only because it was Mel Blanc’s last original voice role. DIC revived the character for a new series in 1984.

Additionally, Marvel’s Star Comics imprint release a comic book adaptation with new longer adventures which lasted for a healthy 56 issues.
 

Director D.J. Caruso, while out promoting his forthcoming Eagle Eye, has expressed interest in heading to Asgard for his next project.

While talking with IESB, he said, “You know…I would definitely tackle [Thor] and I sort of wrestled with it before and I was always a fan of Thor growing up as a kid. I know that they [Marvel] have a script, but there’s something, there’s a fear I have about Thor and depending on what Thor story you want to tell, whether you want to bring Thor into the modern world or if you want to go back to Asgard and get the history of what’s happening between him and his brother and dad. That’s one I’ve always been interested in and it also would be, it would be a monumental task so, I could definitely see myself getting myself into that.

“I have had some talks with Marvel about it but I have not seen a screenplay. It could be something that I am interested in.”

Caruso, who also directed Disturbia, is the first director attached to the project since Stardust’s Matthew Vaughn was associated with the project last year.  Thor remains on Marvel/Paramount’s schedule for a Summer 2010 release along with Iron Man 2.
 

Harvey Pekar: Conversations is a new collection of interviews with the celebrated graphic novelist.  Now available from the University Press of Mississippi, the book spans 25 years of interviews that have been drawn from a wide variety of places, from fanzines and radio to The Washington Post. The book was assembled by Mike Rhode who is editor International Journal of Comic Art and blogs about comics.

The creator American Splendor and subject of a biopic, Pekar has a lot of conversations about life in this country that make for fascinating reading.  The 240-page book comes with 20 illustrations and is available in a $50 hardcover or $22 paperback.
 

With Iron Man coming out on DVD (in a variety of formats and editions) on September 30, Paramount Home Video has begun letting websites sneak peek some of the extras to be found on the discs.

We have three such links for you this morning.  First there’s one on the costume design, then one on flying, and finally one on Robert Downey, Jr. being prepped for the suit.

Enjoy.

Marvel and Brian Michael Bendis have teased the follow up act to Secret Invasion – it’s  Dark Region and with it comes some some major titles changes as well, plus:

• Tobey and Sam and Spider-Man 4
• Seth McFarlane launches his web cartoons
• Chuck Dixon leads The Joes back to comics

And we hit the comic stores and DVD racks for the good, the bad and the “they did what??” – just  Press the Button!
 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via or RSS!

 

Schlock Mercenary: The Teraport Wars is now available for pre-order. The Teraport Wars is the fourth collection of Schlock Mercenary strips to make it into publication; in true George Lucas style, Book 3 and Book 4 were released first. This book fits between The Tub of Happiness and Under New Management, and with it the first 1000 strips are available four hard-copy volumes.

This 228-page volume is in full color on glossy paper, and contains all the strips and footnotes from November 12th of 2001 through March 8th of 2003. It also features some new footnotes, commentary, guest art, concept art, deck plans for the Post-Dated Check Loan, eleven pages of all-new bonus story, and an introduction by Brandon Sanderson. The book is expected to ship October 9.

Schlock Mercenary is a webcomic by Howard Tayler that follows the adventures of a mercenary company aboard a starship in a 31st-century space opera setting. Schlock Mercenary updates daily at http://www.schlockmercenary.com/, and has been doing so continuously since June of 2000, a near-unheard-of feat in webcomics. Schlock Mercenary was previously featured on Keenspot, and is now a member of the Blank Label Comics consortium.