So last night I took my two daughters to see that movie about shape changing robots. (Should I be worried by the fact that my two didn’t ask what masturbation was – but actually laughed at the "Sam’s Special Time" line?)

Before the movie we were bombarded with the usual parade of stupid quizzes and placards telling you to hold your next corporate meeting at the movies (Does anyone actually do that?). Amongst them was one extolling the virtues of advertising your local business to the captive movie audience. That prompted a conversation along the lines that it would be great if local comic-book stores took advantage of opportunities like that, and placed ads before comic book related movies.

Lo and behold 5 minutes later what appears on the screen? Not just one, but two ads promoting two different stores.

So kudos to John at Capstone Comics and Randy at Rogues Gallery for an excellent piece of cross-marketing. Both are excellent clean, family friendly well organized stores and perfect examples of the sort of progressive retail thinking the industry needs to grow.

It’s not often these days I agree with John Byrne’s views on comics. Let’s face it, it’s a long time since he said anything of value on his forum…

But amazingly I find myself agreeing with the sentiments (if not exactly the tone) of this post.

From a conversation with the staff at the wonderful Austin Books & Comics earlier today..

"Mice With Swords are the new Zombies.."

Remember folks, you read it here first.

Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1
DC Comics (52pages / $4.99)

Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Ethan Van Sciver

The only time I read any Green Lantern series for anything like an extended period (i.e. for more than four issues) was during the first iteration of the Green Lantern Corps. I never took to any of the various Lanterns we ended up with patroling Sector 2814, Jordan, Stewart, Gardner and Raynor were all one note characters as far as I was concerned, (with the exception of the animated JL/JLU version of Jon Stewart – now that was how to write a Green Lantern); but Kilowog and the rest of the corps were a fun, intersting set of ring wielders.

I recently tried the new GL Corps book but quickly found myself lost in the convoluted mess that is the current DC Universe continuity. So perhaps I should have known better than to pick this up. The stunning art work of Ethan Van Sciver passed the flick test, and even since finishing the book I’ve flicked it open again just to pour over some of the panels, catching new details and missed nuances of body language and story telling. But pretty pictures do not a story make, and this is no story. It’s another bout of DCU navel gazing that plays to only the most die-hard fanboy. Heck I’ve been reading the DCU books for over twenty years and I still wasn’t exactly sure who was who, or what was what. Too many unnecessary characters doing too many unrelated things, too much violence for violence’s sake and too much reliance on spectacle and shock. Given the current over indulgence on “shock and awe” in various DCU books, the big “twist” at the end hit with the impact of a wet sponge.

(On reading this through again before I posted it, it worries me a little that I actually knew which space sector the Earth was in without looking it up!)

(In case you’re wondering where the other 41 reviews went, I decided to continue the review numbering from the old LiveJournal vesrion of this blog)

James Cameron’s "scriptment" for his aborted 1992 SPIDER-MAN movie has been posted online along with a sampling of story-board style illustrations by artist Daniele Tomasi.

Over at CNN.com this morning they ran an item on the funeral of Captain America.

Seriously. I mean can’t they find enough real events to report on, but before I go off on a rampage about the state of the modern media… what really caught my eye was the fact that the story was headed by the following note.

Editor’s Note: The following Associated Press story reveals events in the Marvel Comics comic-book world concerning Captain America. If you’d rather not know, stop reading now.

News articles with SPOILER WARNINGS !! – The line between reality and fiction blurs just a little bit more.

Over on his blog writer and comics historian Mark Evanier has posted details about the first of two upcoming books about JACK KIRBY.

He describes "Kirby: King Of Comics" as follows:
224 pages in a 9" by 12" hardcover format, published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. which is arguably the leading publisher of art-type books in the United States and maybe anywhere. The book is filled with illustrations from Jack’s life, ranging from things he did as a kid (signed with his real name, Kurtzberg) to work as an adult. Many of the items have been seen before, though never with this quality of printing. Many have never been published. I have, for instance, a couple of unused Marvel covers from the sixties, one still in pencil, and a number of pencil commissions he did for people late in life. We’re printing Jack’s autobiographical story, "Street Code," right off the original negatives. We’re printing a Fighting American story right off the original art. We have some of Jack’s famous collages and a couple of pages where he took the art to some comic he’d done and hand-colored the original art. There are some amazing pieces.

Evanier also posted an update on his long in development Kirby biography: " (there is )no firm publication date or plans at present, is an exhaustive, long, trivia-laden, full-of-hitherto-undisclosed info biography. I’m still working intermittently on that one. Don’t ask me when it’ll be done. I don’t know."

The cover for this year’s ComicCon International souvenir book was released online over the weekend. Not surprisingly as one of the themes for this years nerd-prom is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, the cover features the real stars of the franchise.

No whiny teenagers here…

The image by Adam Hughes is a visual homage to the classic trilogy with each character wearing a costume from each of the movies.