Disney Acquires Marvel

Excelsior! Brave yourself, Marvel Zombies! For when Marvel boldly go where no superheroes had gone before, you gonna need all the war-cries there is out there. It's official. Marvel Entertainment, affectionately known as "The House of Ideas" has been acquired by Disney. For those who actually cares about the details and figures behind the stellar deal, here's an excerpt from the Official Press Release from Disney:- Building on its strategy of delivering quality branded content to people around the world, The Walt Disney Company (DIS) has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (MVL) in a stock and cash transaction, the companies announced today. Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney on August 28, 2009, Marvel shareholders would receive a total of $30 per share in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. At closing, the amount of cash and stock will be adjusted if necessary so that the total value of the Disney stock issued as merger consideration based on its trading value at that time is not less than 40% of the total merger consideration. Based on the closing price of Disney stock on Friday, August 28, the transaction value is $50 per Marvel share or approximately $4 billion. In summary, copyrights of all 5,000 over Marvel characters are now at Disney's disposal, notwithstanding, amongst other subsidiaries, the toy division, Marvel Toys (formerly Toy Biz), the comic publishing wing, Marvel Publishing, Inc., the animation wing, Marvel Animation, and, yes, where the money are... Marvel Studios, the film producing studio, of which its joint production with Paramount Films, Iron Man had generated half a billion by its own. That, is a cash cow the size of Galactus. Nevertheless, Disney had earlier indicated that they have every intention to respect Paramount's distribution deal with Marvel and the ongoing Avengers franchise, but honestly stated that it is in their best interest, overtime, to become the sole distributor of Marvel Films. Likewise for existing licensing and distribution deals. In assuring the gun-carrying Marvel Zombies, Disney references the Pixar deal (which Disney bought in 2006 for $7.4-billion) and will manage Marvel in the very same vein of hands-off relationship they had with the avant-garde animators. Additionally, much praises was handed out by Disney to Marvel towards the licensing in all aspects, particularly the video gaming and film adaptations. Incidentally, the Disney cable channel Disney XD is already running about 20 hours a week of Marvel content currently, which expectedly will be going much higher moving forward. All seemed to be in bliss with the killer merger, with Stan Lee's full endorsements, Joe Quesada, the current Editor-In-Chief of Marvel twittering happily and the fact that Pixar’s John Lasseter has already met with key Marvel creative executives and are looking into potential partnerships. Marvel, with its fairshare of hardships(changing hands of ownership in the 80s, enduring the bankruptcy in the 90s, etc), is now entering the next stage. This is not unlike DC Comics' purchase by Warner Bros back in 1969. Back then, Warner Bros already owns Looney Tunes and its assorted cartoon characters but still reaches out for the comic characters. And time had proven that deal a most fruitful one. I am not concerned with Marvel's future hampered with X-Men getting all High School Musical, Hannah Montana joining the Avengers (Dark, Mighty or New) like what most of the online communities are murmuring about. That is not going to happen. Marvel will grow with a much steady hand at helm. Makes Stan Lee's welcome comments all the more resonating. However, there are indeed some killer crossover that you gotta keep an eye on, say, the final battle between the ducks... I'm sure comic-reading folks are pretty much familiar with the single and very much long-standing feud between Howard The Duck and Donald Duck? Let the Ducks duke it out... Howard The Duck VS Donald Duck! For further reading, check out the industry reaction to the merge covered by comicbookresources.

"Remember, remember the 5th of November."

"Remember, remember the 5th of November. The gunpowder, treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot." "But on this most auspicious of nights permit me then in lieu of the more commonplace sobriquet to suggest the character of the dramatis persona. Voila! In view a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity is a vestige of the vox populi now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance, a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain for the value and voracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Heh heh heh, verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V." - V

New Years Resolutions For 2008

From the impeccable Joy Of tech webcomic.

RIP Mike Wieringo

According to Newsarama, a tragic loss to comicdom. Mike Wieringo passed away Sunday of a sudden heart attack. A fitting tribute from the Fantastic Four to the ever-hardworking illustrator.

Super Grrls

Cool illustration from Lopez at GELATOMETTI. Powerful boobs from Power Girl don't hurt, too.

"My dick's in the bitch's mouth -- and I don't mean in a good way." - Herr Starr, in response after getting his genitalia chewed off by a Rottweiler. Herr Starr, the secondary antagonist (the main antagonist being God) from one of the best comic series ever in my opinion, Preacher. Just one of the many great characters in the uber-epic, Preacher, revisited while browsing around. Lately, besides the defining run on The Punisher, Garth Ennis still produces mostly gems with his huge body of works lately, namely, Chronicles of Wormwood from Avatar Press, and The Boys, recently moved to Dynamite Entertainment after Wildstorm freak out. Anyway, DC now has a page for the trade, sporting extra material like a seven page sample and a trailer.

Poor Alfred, As Ever

Quirky stuffs from Jess. And there's more.

Watchmen, Page Five

Created as some high school project. Rorscharch sounded like some overdosed Dirty Harry though.

Peter Kuper's The System

Was alerted to Peter Kuper's new work, "Stop Forgetting to Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz" and while browsing his stuffs at Amazon, go all kinda nostalgic with his masterpiece, The System. Boldly envisioned and masterfully presented, the highly stylised art provides one with a heightened sense of point of view at New York, as the reader follows the trail of several New Yorkers through all the gritty dark corners of the cold hard city, and concludes when all protagonists's path clashes to a moving end. Can't pass it up.

Rorscharch Sighted

On A side note, kinda... Johnson is no stranger to comic-book adaptations, having written and directed Daredevil and Ghost Rider, both based on Marvel comics characters. In the case of Preacher, however, he felt that a feature film would not do the story justice. "Well, Preacher is 70-something issues," he said. "There was going to be a movie made of Preacher a while ago, and I read the script, and it broke my heart. Because I'm like, 'Oh, it's not a two-hour movie. Preacher's six years—six dedicated years of the most incredible stuff you've ever seen in your whole life. So I always thought HBO was the only way to do that." Absolutely agreed, and had to add that the traumatic almost-two-hours I spend in the cinema enduring Mark Steven Johnson's adaptation of "Ghost Rider", certainly has been courtesy of some spawn from hell intending to throw thirty-five years-thirty five dedicted years of Ol' Flaming Skull's comic coolness straight to hell. For crying out loud, my buddy and I spent the entire movie chanting "Flaming Skulls! Flaming Skulls!" Daredevil was hardly bearable, but Ghost Rider was obscenely bad. And now, one of my all time favourite, "Preacher", one of the best series to ever come out from the Vertigo imprint. Judging from the source material, it's gonna take a genius of a certain proportion and particular talent to screw this up. The problem: Genius specifically of such calibre makes up most of Hollywood. And, I'm more than convinced Mark Steven Johnson's one. Truth be told, in terms of comic adaptation films goes, this is practically the era of "Post Sin City" after the great showing of how it should be done. Thus, the next obvious choice, 300. And after another positive demonstration by Zach Snyder after the decent remade of "Dawn Of The Dead", he's moving on to the holy grail of them comic adaptation. Watchmen. Was so interested that I covered the failed Paul Greengrass/ David Hayter's project in these two entries earlier. And now that Rorscharch himself has shown up in a test shot of himself, complete with Comedian's Smiley button in hand, in a single frame at 1:52 in the R-rated 300 trailer below. As Alan Moore himself put it, "David Hayter's screenplay was as close as I could imagine anyone getting to Watchmen. That said, I shan't be going to see it. My book is a comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book. It's been made in a certain way, and designed to be read a certain way: in an armchair, nice and cozy next to a fire, with a steaming cup of coffee." Fingers crossed. Updated 15th March 2007: Damn. Warner Bros has taken down the trailer from the ever loving Youtube.

Captain Al Cohol

The only comic for Inuits and it's a government sponsored promo on anti-alcohol campaign, featuring a recovering alcoholic alien? It it just me, or does that says something about the Inuits in the 70s? Anyway, this's just one of the many great stuffs that you can find on the COMICS WITH PROBLEM site.

That's The Spirit?

Frank Miller do The Spirit. Source: Lying In The Gutters.

Singaporean Is The Spirit Of 21st Century

Finally, a superhero (or in this case, a superheroine) who proudly wear the Singapore flag! Eat yer heart out, Cap! Jenny Quantum, "The Spirit Of 21st Century", is the successor of Jenny Sparks, "The Spirit Of 20th Century", who died on December 31st, 1999, at the turn of the century. Born in Singapore immediately after Sparks (a chain-smoking good ol' brit) sacrificed herself in Warren Ellis's final arc "The Outer Dark", Quantum invited troubles of disastrous measures to her hometown (our friendly neighbourhood garden city) when supervillains (aptly named, The Americans) gained knowledge of her existence. Featuring massive level of destruction done to Singapore previously unseen in comic history (anyway we've only seen the Singapore Branch of The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in protest of Magneto's trial in Singapore during the "Avengers VS X-Men" arc...which of course wouldn't have happened at all in reality, mutants or no mutant. Singaporean just ain't cut out for protests), the baddies practically clear up our beloved garden city, of which consequence of the battle was never properly told (can't help but wonder about Singapore's existence in the Wildstorm Universe, though pretty sure that Wildstorm's resident "man of steel" Apollo got raped). Surely, if "The Spirit Of 20th Century" was appropriately enough, a tough-as-nails English lady, then probably the no-nonsense, kiasu Singaporean Spirit are one to embrace for the 21st Century.

Death Notes - "Poison, Creating Wicked Hearts"

Imitating events in the manga series Death Note, Chinese school students in the city of Shenyang have take to writing death notes. The students buy special stationary and follow instructions such as "Write the cause of death and the person's name backwards and the person will die in 40 seconds." A middle school student told the Shenyang Night Report, "Many of my friends have Death Note. When they are tired of studying, they have fun by writing down the names of teachers they don't like." Some Shenyang schools have banned the manga and related stationary, the newspaper called Death Note, "Poison, creating wicked hearts." Others however, including one major Chinese newspaper, feel that the ban is an over-reaction and is inappropriate. Some have suggested that overreactions such as these are what stifle creativity in China. Sounds like a great intro to me.

Quite Quitely

Frank Quitely ends his prolific year with a bang, reminding us why he can kick Joe Madureira and all his clone's collective asses.

Mister Miracle's Greatest Escape!

Mister Miracle's greatest stunt : Escape from a comic book! But for those who, like me, bought "Mister Miracle#1", written by Grant Morrison, won't get to see the hands holding the book as it was left on the editing table, due to unknown reasons. Gotten this nifty little piece of info from the very resourceful Comics Should Be Good site and what an absolute pity this is. I trust this couldn't be a hoax, but really can't figure out why this kickass concept was left out by the final editing and why Morrison actually allowed the unreasonable cut. Just a simple touch and an old concept comes alive, literally. That's really vintage Morrison. Personally, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's "WE3" are the frontrunner for the best comic of the year on my list. Anyway, as I did mentioned, Comics Should Be Good has been an exceptionally great site for comic geeks like myself, with their excellent reviews and behind-the-scene informations about the industry. Just check out their "Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed History" article for starters.

Been Caught Stealing

You need neither a sharp eye nor some basic aesthetic foundation to figure this out. It is that obvious. However I do sympathize with the mentioned Shojo Artist for being the one getting caught, what with the enormous numbers of cases all over the market, and she's the 1,001 luck-out one. It was said that the Fans pointed out the similarities online, leading to the crackdown. Bah, the power of the internet manifest yet again. Read on. Kodansha has pulled 25 works by cartoonist Yuki Suetsugu out of print and is withdrawing the remaining copies, over allegations that she stole images from the popular "Slam Dunk" comic books by Takehiko Inoue. Kodansha officials said Suetsugu had used images from "Slam Dunk" in her 12-part comic-book series "Eden no Hana." In addition to taking all 25 of her works out of print, it has decided to halt publication of the series "Silver" appearing in monthly publication "Bessatsu Friend." Officials said the stolen images were used in a basketball scene, and bore a close resemblance to those in "Slam Dunk." Suetsugu has admitted having copied the images. On the following day, both Kodansha and Suetsugu apologised publicly on the Kodansha site. 末次由紀氏の描写盗用問題については、詳細を調査中ですが、 多くについては事実が確認されました。末次氏もこれを認めております。 「別冊フレンド」の連載の即刻中止を決め、末次氏のすべての単行本も 出荷停止・絶版・回収の措置をとりました。 編集部としても盗用に気づかなかったことを深く反省するとともに、 著作権者の方、そして読者の皆様にお詫び申し上げます。 講談社　広報室 今回このような事態を招いてしまって本当に申し訳ありません。 自分のモラルの低さと認識の甘さにより、多大なるご迷惑をおかけしてしまった 著作権者の皆様、関係者の皆様、そしてなにより読者の皆様に深く謝罪申し上げます。 末次由紀 In good ol'English : From Kodansha: We are still looking into the plagiarism case regarding Suetsugu Yuki, but we can already confirm that much of it is true. Suetsugu has also admitted to it. Serialization in 'Bessatsu Friend' has immediately been stopped, as well as the shipping of all of Suetsugu's tankoubon. They will no longer be printed and steps for a recall have been taken. We deeply regret that the plagiarism went unnoticed by our editorial department, and we apologize to the copyright holders as well as all our readers. Kodansha PR department From Suetsugu: I am really sorry for having invited this situation. I have caused much trouble, due to my low morals and lack of foresight and deeply apologize to all copyright holders, all people involved and above all to all readers. Suetsugu Yuki Low morals, eh? I do vaguely remember a certain renowned American Comic Artist (Hint hint : This guy got an equally famous comic artist sibling, and his old man's one hell of an iconic figure in the comic industry) resorting to similar antics back in his early days, and was spotted by some eagle-eyed reader who in turns exposed the incident on one of the early issues of Wizard. Not much of an issue back then despite the blatantly obvious swipes (And I thought the Americans are supposedly the front-runner in terms of copyright matters). And sadly, the swiping techniques had been evidently in fashion for like, almost forever. If only such antics were better enforced in America, the sheer volume of books to be recall are, well I can almost see the big fat grin on the face of the shredding service provider's face. Anyway, as I was saying, the power of the internet, indeed. As expected, uproars and backlash came hand in hand after the incident. Similarities to Bastard!, Real (also by Takehiko Inoue), and other mangas were exposed as well. A parting shot for you.

This Was Batman!?!

Poor Robin.

Perry Bible Fellowship

Just one of the many briliant stuffs by Nicholas Gurewitch. Stuffs that convinced me that web comics do kickass.