Canadian cartoonist Ralph Hagen will craft a new comic strip, The Barn, debuting from Creators Syndicate on October 27. The strip will concentrate on the interaction between farm animals and local humans.

Hagen, a self-taught artist, has been professionally illustrating for 31 years and has been published in a variety of outlets from The Saturday Evening Post to Reader’s Digest. He’s also done commercial illustration for numerous clients including Kraft Foods.
 

Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay will adapt The Boys for the big screen according to The Hollywood Reporter.  The Columbia Pictures’ project is based on the Garth Ennis/Darick Robertson series which first launched at WildStorm and quickly moved to Dynamite Entertainment.

According to THR, “The book follows the adventures of a CIA squad, known informally as ‘the boys,’ whose job is to keep watch on the proliferation of superheroes and, if necessary, intimidate or eliminate them.”

The movie is one of many comic book properties currently being developed by producer Neal H. Moritz who also has The Green Hornet, Flash Gordon, and Luke Cage on his To Do list. Also attached as producers are Kickstart’s Jason Netter and attorney Ken F. Levin.

The screenwriting team has had success in Hollywood with a mix of projects ranging from the ambitious Crazy/Beautiful to the action adventure misfires Aeon Flux and The Tuxedo.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment announced today that the DVD for The Incredible Hulk will be released on October 21 in a variety of formats.: a three-disc Special Edition DVD available for a limited time only; a two-disc Blu-ray release, offered in collectible 3D lenticular packaging for a limited time only; and a single-disc DVD edition.

The film starring Edward Norton and Liv Tyler has taken in $234.6 million worldwide, eclipsing the Ang Lee incarnation.

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For those turned off by both Obama and McCain and won’t even consider Nader, then you might want to consider exercising your right by voting for Charlie Brown. To keep people engaged in the electoral process Rock the Vote has worked with United Media to craft a Peanuts-centric website where people can legitimately register for the general election while also casting a vote for Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy or Sally.

No surprise that as of this morning, Snoopy has a strong lead across the land. Additionally, Warner Home Video has planned a rerelease of You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown for October 7.  The DVD has been remastered in a new deluxe edition.
 

Garth Ennis’ The Boys is moving forward a film project but it appears adapting his Preacher series is too controversial for the screen, be it big or small.

Comics Continuum broke the story from screenwriter Mark Steven Johnson that the current management at HBO has shied away from the television incarnation.  He was told “the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial.”

The Vertigo series, co-created with artist Steve Dillon, ran from 1995 through 2000 and was an exploration into the relationship between man and God, among several other topics.  It was an award-winning project now collected into a series of trade collections that continue to sell well.

A feature film version, possibly starring James Marsden (Superman Returns, Enchanted), has been in the works as an independent feature from View Askew Productions. Rachel Talalay (Tank Girl) was attached to direct with Samuel L. Jackson interested in portraying the Saint of Killers.

HBO stepped in and announced it would develop the series for their pay cable channel in November 2006 with Daredevil writer/director Johnson attached with director Howard Deutch. Johnson initially indicated he saw each issue of the comic as an episode of the hour-long series. He reversed that position and was working with Ennis on crafting new stories when the network pulled the plug.