Merry Gerry!

Gerry Conway, former DC and Marvel editor and writer, has a blog and promises to post regularly. If so, I promise to read it regularly. Deal?

Shellhead

With the success of Iron Man, what other secondary Marvel or DC characters might serve as material for films?

Green Lantern? Sub-Mariner?

Too late for Daredevil, Howard The Duck and probably The Hulk.




How about Planetary?

Help David Pirkola

David Pirkola, owner and operator of Apparitions Comics and Books in Grand Rapids, Michigan was robbed at his store and then shot by the robber. He is currently in stable, but critical condition at a local hospital. He has no health insurance. Hit the link for more info and to make a contribution.

I don't know the guy from Adam, but I've been going to comic stores even before there were any (My Friends Bookstore in Brooklyn) so throw this poor guy a few bucks and gain that smug, self-satisfied feeling that you can only get from doing something nice for someone who needs it.

Where is Flex Mentallo?

The acclaim for All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely has been unanimous. So why hasn't DC reprinted the earlier series by this pair, a spin-off of Morrison's Doom Patrol, Flex Mentallo, a multi-layered post-modern extravaganza?

Seems crazy, since the title is easy enough to find on BitTorrent. And there's plenty of demand.

Johnny Bunko

That madman Daniel Pink, whose previous death-defying feats included writing speeches for Al Gore, wrote a manga-esque career book, which I reviewed in The Miami Herald.

(Pink also wrote a great piece about the Japanese comics industry in Wired a few months back.)

Check out the trailer for the Johnny Bunko book (a trailer for a book? WTF?!) above.

UPDATE: check this out for more on Bunko from yours truly and another fellow.

Steve Gerber switched ducks!

In 1996, Steve Gerber pulled off an incredible cross-company switch — engineered by no less a maniac than Image Comics Publisher Erik Larsen — that resulted in Howard the Duck switching places (in the Marvel Universe) with a clone, then renamed "Leonard. The "real" Howard (Leonard) was in Steve's virtual possession through his final days. The clone remained with Marvel.

Think I'm making this up or it's an April Fool's thing? Read this.I'm going to lay out the whole story when I get a chance, including an interview rescued from Wizard's recent page-purge, but it's nice to know that things worked out... even if we're talking about fantasy.

GN reviews

"League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier" and Bryan Talbot's "Heart of Empire" CD-ROM in The Miami Herald.