DC’s got a new logo

So, some of the big news today is DC’s new logo. I’m not sure how many of you follow various geek news outlets, but rumours have been swirling for something like a week that DC was on the verge of unveiling a new logo, along with a leaked image:

Image from http://ifanboy.com

Today DC made the announcement official, with a bit of a subdued tweet from the @DCComics feed, and an announcement on their official blog calling it a “New Brand Identity”. Reading into blog post they’ve got there, it seems that they’re trying to unify the brand name, which I suppose really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise considering the recent changes that we’ve seen from them. Before I continue, here’s the official versions of the logo:

Originals courtesy of http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com

So those are a few examples; on their blog entry they mention that “The new identity is built for the digital age, and can easily be animated and customized to take full advantage of the interactivity offered across all media platforms.” To me it seems almost modular, that they’ll be mixing it up for promotional purposes. It’s a neat idea, and while it seems to be executed well, I’ll be waiting to pass judgement until March when they start rolling it out across major product lines.

As for the logo itself, I’m not sure how I feel about it. It doesn’t feel like DC anymore; there’s no star, the DC Entertainment logo (Which would seem to be the primary variant) is a white and gray as opposed to white and blue, and the peeling D obscures much of the C. That said, the examples above do show various colour variants, whether those will change from title to title, or just promotional materials I couldn’t say for certain, though it seems that it will. I threw in the Green Lantern variant as well, which I thought was an interesting execution. I’m just not sure that I like the idea of them having different colour variants on their major titles; it almost feels disjointed. Additionally, it seems that they’re making a point of stating that Vertigo and Mad are part of the DC Entertainment line as well, although we’ll see if they add that line to the logo permanently or again just for promotional materials.

All in all it looks like DC’s committed to the new directions it’s taking, and this is actually a pretty big step to take. How about you guys, what do you think? Drop us a line in the comments, and sound off on it!

Marvel Announces Fear Itself

Here we go again! Yes Marvel Comics had promised to go easy on the company-wide crossovers for awhile, but I guess that time is up. Marvel announced the next big crossover on the 21st of December at Midtown Comics in Manhattan to a gathered crowd. The big storyline is called “Fear Itself” and will feature a 7-issue mini-series written by Matt Fraction (Invincible Iron Man, Thor) and feature artwork by Stuart Immonen (New Avengers). A companion mini-series, along the lines of Siege: Frontline, is also in the cards as well as other tie-in mini-series just like in the rest of Marvel’s big events. The plan is to also have Ed Brubaker and Scot Eaton provide a prologue issue that will lead directly into the main mini-series much in the same way that Brian Bendis and Michael Lark did for the big Siege event. Joe Quesada assured us that reading the main 7-issue series will be enough, but as always, the companion series will make the story all the more interesting. To read more on this exciting news, just click right here…

NYCC 2010 Round-Up

-Marvel announced the next character to get the “Astonishing” treatment, and that character is Captain America. Astonishing Captain America will be a five or six issue mini-series that will be written by Andy Diggle (Daredevil, Shadowland) and feature artwork by Adi Granov (Iron Man & Iron Man films). People have been wondering if this mini-series will take place in the film continuity, due to the similarities in the Captain America uniform, but Mr. Diggle has let everyone know that this is not the case. Look for in early 2011.

- Starting with issue #36, Astonishing X-Men will go back to a regular shipping schedule and also get a new regular creative team. That team will be writer Daniel Way (Deadpool, Wolverine: Origins) and artist Jason Pearson (covers for Deadpool). This series is not to be confused with the Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis mini-series by Warren Ellis and Kaare Andrews.

-The upcoming arc in Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four, entitled 3, will see the death of one of the team members. As a nod to another famous comic book death, Marvel has decided to release the first issue in a black bag with the number 3 on the outside. Sounds kind of cool…

-February will see the launch of Iron Man 2.0 as a new ongoing series. As opposed to having another monthly starring Tony Stark, this book will feature Colonel James Rhodes (Rhodey) aka War Machine, in a new suit of armour. The book is being planned as a stand alone series where you don’t have to read the regular Iron Man series in order to follow it, but also act as a companion piece to Invincible Iron Man which will pay off more if you read both. Writer Nick Spencer, new to Marvel, will write the book, while Barry Kitson will handle the art chores.

-Like Thor and Daredevil before it, the Iron Man series (Invincible Iron Man) will return to it’s classic numbering with the 600^th issue. Look for this in early 2011.

-Marvel announced that we will finally get an Ultimate Captain America mini-series. The series will be brought to us by writer Jason Aaron (Scalped) and artist Ron Garney (Captain America in the 1990’s). The story will supposedly feature a Captain America from the Vietnam War era. The secret identity of this new Cap will be familiar to comics fans, according to the creators.

-Brian Bendis made a few cool announcements as well. First: Brian Bendis and regular collaborator Alex Maleev (they did Sam & Twitch, Daredevil, Spider-Woman, and Scarlet) have announced that they are currently working on a new interpretation of Moon Knight. Supposedly they were tasked with taking on the character in a whole new way, and they came up with a great angle. Bendis insists that work on their creator-owned series from ICON, Scarlet (which is bi-monthly), will not be affected by this new series. The creators plan on doing both. The second announcement was that Bendis, along with another long time collaborator, Mike Avon Oeming, will be launching a new creator-owned all ages series from Marvel’s ICON imprint called Takio. The series will feature two sisters with superpowers with a mild dislike of each other. The goal with this series is to release a graphic novel sized book once a year. Bendis and Oeming are taking a page from fellow ICON talent Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips book and will rotate between their creator-owned series. Bru and Philly cut time between Criminal and Incognito, both of which come out from ICON.

-Following the all the negative press of raising the prices on many of their books to $3.99 from $2.99, DC has announced that they will be rolling back several series to the original $2.99 price tag. This change should come into effect in the next few weeks. Marvel will be following suit starting in January 2011.

-Months ago DC announced that Jim Lee and Frank Miller, the creative team behind All-Star Batman & Robin, would be coming back to the All-Star universe with a new mini-series starring Robin. Well…we finally have a date. February 2001 will see the release of Dark Knight: Boy Wonder. No word on how long the series is set to run, but the delay until February may be so Jim Lee can have the series fully penciled before an issue is even on the stands. …but I’m not holding my breathe.

-Geoff Johns announced that the first issue of a new ongoing series starring one of the new “Corps” has already been completed. No word on which Corps is getting it’s own book, but my bets are on the Red Lantern Corps. If not the Red corps, could it be the “Pink Lanterns” of Zamaron as led by Carol Ferris?

-Rumour has it that writer James Robinson is currently working on a new ongoing Hawkman series. No artist was rumoured along with the Robinson news, but we’ll update y’all when we get the update.

-J.H. Williams new Batwoman series will launch in November with a #0 issue, with a new #1 following in February 2011. The #0 issue will coincide with the release of the various new Batman series.

-…and last but not least: Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly are supposedly working on a sequel to the graphic novel “New York 5″. As the line they launched the first OGN under no longer exists, we can expect to see this new OGN (and perhaps a re-print of the original) from DC’s adult division, Vertigo.

Finally. Some Superb Direction!

Huge news from the comic book / movie world today. Christopher Nolan and David Goyer, best known as the director and writer of the recent Batman films, and also known as the shepherds of the upcoming Superman movie, have announced that they have nailed down a director for the project. Zack Snyder, the man behind the film versions of Frank Miller’s 300 as well as Alan Moore’s Watchmen, has signed onto to bring the Man of Steel back to the big screen. For a full report on this, just click right here.

The Death of Wildstorm Comics

It happened yesterday afternoon. DC Comics co-publishers Dan Didio and Jim Lee announced yesterday that DC Entertainment had decided to basically kill the Wildstorm comic book Universe in the massive resources shuffling that has occurred over at the New York DC offices. All of DC’s operation in New York, minus the Vertigo offices, has now shut down and is moving to the west coast, specifically to Burbank, California. Many of the editorial staff from Wildstorm will either transfer to DC’s Digital Team, or lose their jobs. For the full scoop on this heartbreaking end, just click here. And for a very interesting look at how DC has been killing the Wildstorm brand for years, just click right here. Sound off in our comments section below. We want to hear what you all think of this development…

San Diego Comic-Con 2010 News Rundown

The biggest week in Comic Book fandom has just passed us by. Yes…that’s right. The San Diego Comic Con just happened, and we have a report on some of the biggest news items to come out of SoCal. Check it all out!!

• DC has announced that David Finch, who in January signed an exclusive deal with the publisher after several years at Marvel and Top Cow, will be writing and providing art on a new ongoing Batman series entitled Batman: The Dark Knight. The book will feature Bruce Wayne as Batman in stories inspired by the 1970’s Batman runs by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. This series is set to debut in November 2010.

• October will see the release of a one-shot entitled Batman: The Return, written by Grant Morrison with art by David Finch. This book will act as a precursor to Finch’s Dark Knight series.

• Anton Yelchin, best known as Chekov in the new Star Trek and John Connor’s father in Terminator: Salvation, has been cast as Harry Osborn in the new Spider-Man reboot film. This kid is a genre superstar!

• DC Comics has announced that the ongoing Vertigo series, Greek Street, which is a modern retelling of Greek tragedies using modern day London as its setting, has been cancelled. The series last issue will be issue #16.

• Grant Morrison is working on Multiversity, a massive DC-multiverse spanning series that will have ten artists attached to it. Currently the only known confirmed members of said group of ten are Frank Quitely, who will be drawing the book detailing Earth-4 and all the Charlton characters. It should be very “watchmen-esque”; and Cameron Stewart, who will be working on “Thunderworld” which is a look at the Captain Marvel family of characters.

• Marvel has announced that X-Force will be relaunching this fall. The series will be re-titled Uncanny X-Force and will launch with a new #1. The team will also be making some roster changes. The new line-up is: Wolverine, Deadpool, Archangel, Psylocke, and Fantomex. The first villain they will tackle is expected to be Apocalypse. The series will also have an “Explicit Content” tag on it due to all the bloody gore that is expected to populate this series. Rick Remender will write the book while Jerome Opena will draw it.

• Marvel announced a new Spider-Girl ongoing series, but it will have nothing to do with Mayday Parker or her long time writer, Tom Defalco. The new series will star Arana who turned into the new Spider-Girl in last issue of the Grim Hunt storyarc that just wrapped up in Amazing Spider-Man. The series will be written by Paul Tobin and feature artwork by Clayton Henry.

• Marvel also announced two new Spider-Man mini-series. The first, Osborn, will deal with Norman Osborn behind bars. This series is brought to us by writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Emma Rios; while the second is called Carnage and will be brought to us by writer Zeb Wells and artist Clayton Crain. Both series will run for 5 issues and begin later in 2010.

• Scott Kurtz, the mad mind behind the series PvP, is pulling the book from Image Comics as well as Diamond Distributors. Kurtz is going back to self publishing and plans on selling the book directly to stores and fans via his website. The single issues will disappear, but graphic novel collection will still be available. Is this the future of the creator owned book? Will Diamond’s monopoly finally be challenged in a meaningful way?

• Jimmy Palmiotti along with AiT/Planetlar owner Larry Young and Hollywood producer Jason Netter have announced that they are starting a new comic book company called Kick Start Comics. The company will be attached to Kickstart Entertainment. The company will publish four books a month to start and will be distributing their wares to the direct market via venues such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Barnes & Noble. Expect these books to be published in a different size than regular comics to accommodate different sized shelf space at these stores. The debut comics include Bad Guys by Phil Eisner, Rift Raiders from Mark Sable and Julian Totino Tedesco, Adam Freeman and Marc Bernardin’s Hero Complex and Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett’s Witch. Netter, Palmiotti and Justin Gray had already been behind Image titles such as Splatterman/Random Acts of Violence.

• DC/Vertigo has announced that starting in October they will be releasing previously unreleased issues under a banner called “Vertigo Resurrected”. The line will be used to release books that were scuttled out of fear that they would upset readers. The first issue seeing publication is Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez’s issue of Hellblazer (originally supposed to be #141) called ‘Shoot’, which deals with a school shooting. It was pulled before publication originally as it’s release would have been just a few weeks after the Columbine massacre of 1999.

• Writer and Image partner Robert Kirkman (Invincible, The Walking Dead) has announced that he is launching a new creator friendly/creator-owned imprint out of Image Comics. The Imprint, called SKYBOUND, is more creator friendly than the regular Image Comics wherein under Skybound’s banner Image will help with advanced payment and marketing assistance (which IMAGE Central does not do). Because Kirkman is taking this on himself, Mr. Kirkman will receive a cut of the money made from the various licensing deals that would flow from his help. The first tile to launch under the Skybound banner will be “WITCH DOCTOR” by Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner, while the second announced title will be Thief of Thieves by writer Nick Spencer, who is already working with Image on Existence 2.0. and Forgetless. Also, Kirkman’s books Invincible and The Walking Dead will be moving under the Skybound shingle as well. Click here for the full scoop…

• Marvel Studios has finally confirmed the identities of the actors who will play Bruce Banner/The Hulk and Clint Barton/Hawkeye in Joss Whedon’s Avengers film: Mark Ruffalo will be the third man in a decade to play The Hulk on screen, while Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) will strap on the bow and arrow as Hawkeye. Click here for the full scoop…

• An unconfirmed rumor out of Comic-con was that writer Jeff Parker, the current Hulk scribe, will be taking over the adjectiveless Avengers title with issue #7. It was confirmed that Red Hulk would be joining the team with that issue, so Parker taking over would make sense. We will provide confirmation once we have it..

• Writer Marc Guggenheim has announced his new imprint with Image called Collider Entertainment. The imprint will primarily feature Hollywood screenwriters creating original comic properties, but without the intent to one day make the comic into a film. Marc mentioned that most film writers will just use an old spec script they wrote years ago as the basis for a new comic, but for his imprint, he wants totally new and original content.

• DC Comics announced that a new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents book will be launched in the coming months. The series will be written by Nick Spencer and feature artwork by CAFU. We can also expect a cover by Frank Quitely and a variant cover by Darwyn Cooke for the first issue.

• For those who remember him, Joe Madureira, best known as the big X-Men artist in the mid-1990’s, is having all 9 issues of his creator owned Image series, Battlechasers, collected in a soft cover collection in November. The series ended on a cliffhanger, but since he has no plans on ever going back to finish the story, collecting all 9 issues seemed like the thing to do.

• Artist Darick Robertson and writer Christos Gage are currently working on a project together for Wildstorm Comics that they are currently unable to announce the title of. All we know is that it’s a creator-owned mini-series. We can expect to see it in 2011…

• Marvel’s top creative executive Joe Quesada let it slip that it looks like Marvel will be re-printing the long out of print back catalogue of Crossgen comics. Crossgen, which was around from 1998 to 2004 was bought out completely by Disney a few years ago in order for Disney to acquire the rights to the book Abadazad. With the recent partnering of Disney with Marvel, this one was a no-brainer. Even though Crossgen failed as a company, they still had some great comics…

• Writer Mark Millar has finally announced his new creator owned book from Marvel’s ICON imprint. The book will be call Superior and will feature artwork by none other than Leinil Francis Yu. Millar also took the chance to announce that Matthew Vaughan, the director on Millar’s Kick-Ass movie as well as the upcoming X-Men: First Class film, plans on bringing Superior to the big screen after he finishes up with X-Men. Click here for the full scoop…

• Marvel has announced that they will be bringing an Ultimate Spider-Man animated series to the small screen in the near future. The coolest news attached to this announcement is that Brian Michael Bendis, the man behind scripting the actual comic book series, will be writing for it as well as being a producer on it.

• DC announced that all of the character from various Vertigo titles that got their start in the DCU (ex. Swamp Thing, Madame Xanadu, Death, Sandman, etc.) would be returning to it. Of course, the only exception to this is John Constantine, Hellblazer, who will stay firmly entrenched in Vertigo’s sandbox…

EXCLUSIVES:

• Writer Scott Snyder (Vertigo’s American Vampire) has signed exclusive with DC. Snyder will be the new regular writer on DC’s Detective Comics starting later in 2010.

• Tyler Kirkham has signed an exclusive deal with DC Comics. The artist has been made the new regular artist on DC’s Green Lantern Corps with Tony Bedard as the writer. Look for his run to start in October with issue #53.

…and that’s all from the SDCC 2010 for now. As more analyses is completed, we’ll report on anything that fell through the cracks. Enjoy everyone

First Class Bacon!

20^th Century Fox, the studio behind the X-Men film franchise, and thus Matthew Vaughan’s upcoming X-Men: First Class movie, have announced that they have signed on big time star Kevin Bacon (my aunt knows his hairdresser) to play the film’s big villain. Fox won’t say who Bacon is playing, but the scuttlebutt is that he will either be portraying Sebastian Shaw, the head of the villainous Hellfire Club, or (my personal favourite) Nathaniel Essex, otherwise known as Mister Sinister. Either would be awesome J . Click here for the full scoop…

Ed Norton Out as Hulk in Marvel’s Film Franchise

At first it was just a crazy rumor going around Hollywood. We’ve definitiely heard this kind of thing before. But now it seems as though that was just wishful thinking. Marvel Studios has announced that Edward Norton, one of the best actors of my generation, will not play Bruce Banner/The Hulk in Marvel’s upcoming Avengers movie as he did in 2008’s Incredible Hulk. This means that whoever plays Banner/Hulk in the upcoming Avengers movie will be the third actor in the last decade to play the not-so-jolly green giant after Norton and Eric Bana. Marvel had said they wanted an unknown actor to take on the role, but that has now been ammended, and Marvel says that they will be announcing a name actor in the role soon.

This really comes as a surprise as it was generally known that Mr. Norton had had a very successful meeting with Avengers director slash geek icon, Joss Whedon, and everybody was happy. Norton wanted in Avengers and didn’t want to futz with the script like he did in The Incredible Hulk, and Whedon wanted Norton. But then Marvel went and did this. The question everyone is asking is: Why, Marvel? Why dump one of the best actors in the medium for an unknown? Surely it’s not something like bankroll? We all thought continuity amoung the Marvel Studios movies was important to Marvel. What’s changed? No word yet on who will play Hulk in Avengers, but supposedly we can expect an announcement during the San Diego Comic Con.

Jeph Loeb’s Promotion

Marvel Entertainment has just announced that they have created a new position to head their newest entertainment division. The role is Executive Vice President: Head of Television, and it has been given to long time Marvel Comics writer, Jeph Loeb. Mr. Loeb is best known for his stints as a producer on such shows as Smallville, Heroes, and Lost, as well as his long career as a screen and comic book writer. Check out the full story here.

X-Men: First Class Has a Magneto

The Matthew Vaughan directed X-Men prequel, X-Men: First Class, has now cast its Magneto. Michael Fassbender, perhaps best known for his roles as Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds,  Sgt. Burton ‘Pat’ Christenson in HBO’s Band of Brothers, and Stelios in 300, will play the role opposite James McEvoy as Charles Xavier. The more roles that get cast, the better this movie looks. It’s really shaping up to be the best X-Men flick to date . Check out the original story here.