Comics Links & Reviews
Beaucoup Kevin thinks this (to your right) is the greatest comics panel of all time. (It’s possible…after all, malt does more than Milton can to justify Kirby’s ways to man.)
The Beat reports that Too Much Coffee Man will be debuting in a new form at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con: as an opera.
Todd Allen of Comic Book Resources collates all of the various statements about DC’s big Zudacomics world-domination scheme, and tries to explain what to expect from it.
The Nichei Bei Times asks the loaded question: what is manga?
Over the weekend, I read the entire trade paperback collection of The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen. I had anticipated a rollicking journey through my childhood, since I’d read most of these stories as a kid. 
When I first moved into my new home it seemed like every single day for a month I received a sales call from a mortgage company. They always asked for a Mr. Fong. When the calls first started I told them politely that I was not Mr. Fong and asked to be put on the Do Not Call list. 
It’s said that there are only a few established art and entertainment forms that America can truly call its own — baseball, jazz music and comic books. It’s a bit of a hubristic statement, not surprising coming from a country as relatively young yet as vast as our own. It almost sounds as if we’re trying to convince ourselves of our own cultural relevance — even more so because we realize that each of these things has its roots elsewhere. But hey, so do most of us. And just as this "nation of immigrants" has brought disparate peoples into a "melting pot" atmosphere wherein their contributions have mixed to form a melange all its own, so have jazz, comics and baseball taken previously existing elements and turned them into something new and unique.
Every weekend, when I walk by the newsstands, I see cover stories in gossip magazines about Brad and Angelina, Jennifer, Reese, Lindsay, Britney and others. Although I only read these magazines at the hairdressers, I am fascinated by the lifestyles of people I will likely never meet. On Sunday, I enjoy the Real Estate section of The New York Times, looking at pictures of homes that can cost tens of millions of dollars. 
(To his credit, my son wanted to do the right thing. “Don’t worry,” he assured me when he was five years old. “If you’re ever gunned down by criminals, I promise to avenge your death.”)
Doctor Impossible is a supervillain; Fatale is a superheroine. They fight, and you know who wins. The end.
In last week’s installment of what some of you may be beginning to think is an endless blather, when I was discussing movie serials I neglected to mention that serials were among the first non-comics forms to use superheroes. During that decade, lucky young popcorn eaters could see Superman, Batman, Captain America and, in my opinion the best of them all, Captain Marvel in the continued chapter plays that were a staple of Saturday matinees. (That probably doesn’t exhaust the list, but memory is not my greatest gift… At least I don’t think so…) Having seen some of the above-mentioned entertainments, and having, within the past two weeks, seen the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four movies, I realize that the serial makers were born too soon.
Consider the preceding two paragraphs a digression, please. And now we return to our regularly scheduled topic –
Warner Bros. Consumer Products has awarded Mattel, Inc., the master toy license for the complete DC Comics Universe of characters and properties. In addition to the rights to existing DC Comics characters/animation/movies, the multi-year pact provides Mattel with the rights to produce toys based on future DC Universe film and animation projects that are developed and produced during the term of the agreement. Mattel will support the DC Universe characters across all of its key brands including Hot Wheels, Radica, Fisher-Price, Tyco and Mattel Games. 
