Pop Artifact! Mandrake the Magician club pin

"The Batman vs. Dracula" DVD set for October release

A straight-to-DVD animated film, the title will be out Oct. 18.

Here's a synopsis from Warner Home Video:

Gotham City is terrorized not only by recent escapees Joker and Penguin, but by the original creature of the night, Dracula! Can Batman stop the ruthless vampire before he turns everyone in the city, including The Caped Crusader, Joker and Penguin, into his mindless minions?

Extras include:

Featurette: "Science vs. Superstition": Batman?s computer gives light to the legend of Dracula and all its rumors.

Other: 1) "City of Knight": Click on a map of Gotham and discover behind the scenes and hidden buttons with short video clips of the making of.
2) "Voices in Close Up": Multi-window montage with pop-up trivia boxes and interview footage give intimate interview looks at the voices behind Batman vs. Dracula.


Lisa Kirby speaks out on "Fantastic Four" flick

The daughter of legendary comics artists and FF creator Jack Kirby tells the Los Angeles Times that her dad's name will be listed in the credits of the new film, but the Kirby Estate hasn't been promised any money from the film.

"I have mixed feelings every time one of these movies comes out," Lisa Kirby said. "My dad would be amazed that they're making these superhero movies — that his characters are still alive and that people are still enjoying them. Then again, it's disheartening that he isn't getting as much recognition as he should."

Also, while Marvel reaps the rewards of Lee's and Kirby's creations through licensing and profit agreements, Kirby's heirs see nary a dime. Because Kirby was considered "work for hire" when he was drawing for Marvel, the company has complete ownership of the characters.

(Any doubt about Kirby's employment status was put to an end in 1987, when, in exchange for the return of his original art, Kirby signed a document giving up any rights he might have had in the characters he created.)

More golden age comics podcasting

Bill Jourdain continues with his Golden Age of Comics podcasts this week:

The fifth installment of The Golden Age of Comic Books podcast has been uploaded. In this issue, we discuss some very high dollar books in our marketplace segment. We also discuss the Golden Age Human Torch from his start in Marvel Comics #1 in 1939, through his appearances in the Silver and Bronze Ages. If you have iTunes 4.9, you can subscribe to The Golden Age of Comic Books podcast by selecting the link on our web site, http://www.goldenagecomics.org. If you use a different player on your computer (i.e. Windows Media Player, Quick Time, Real Audio, etc.) you can download the .mp3 file directly from our web site.

Pop Artifact! Marvel Super Heroes lunch box

DVD new releases for July

July 5



The Film Noir Classic Collection 2: (Born to Kill / Clash by Night / Crossfire / Dillinger (1945) / The Narrow Margin (1952)



Monk Complete Third Season



Fantastic Four Complete 1995 Animated Series



July 12



Million Dollar Baby



Cry Baby



July 19



Earth 2 the Complete Series



Constantine



Sliders the Complete Third Season



Lost in Space Season 3, Vol. 2



Dead Like Me Complete Second Season



July 26



The Brady Bunch Complete Second Season



The Return of the Pink Panther



Gilligan's Island The Complete Third Season



Silk Stalkings The Complete Third Season



The Jerk



Star Trek Enterprise Complete Second Season



The Mary Tyler Moore Show Complete Second Season



Third Rock from the Sun Complete First Season



Remington Steele The Complete First Season



Profiling Joe Simon

The Philadelphia Daily News has a feature story on the 91-year-old comics pioneer and co-creator of Captain America:

"We were just trying out new superheroes at the time," said Simon. "We were at war, and Adolf Hitler, of course, was the villain of the world. Villains seemed to be in fashion at the time, and we had one ready-made for us, even if he wasn't a figment of someone's imagination."

..."We just caught on immediately," he said. "I gave Jack Kirby the scripts. It was both of us that came up with it. We were both responsible."

And now today's weather report...

from David Lynch?!

Found via BoingBoing.

Comics Buyers Guide launches Web site, forums

Yeah! A new place to fight and argue about comic books!

The Comics Buyers Guide--one of the longest-running magazines devoted to comic book news and collectors info around--has announced a new Web site with several discussion areas:

They include ones to talk about recent features (including this month’s Battle of the Ages among its columnists and editors about when the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Mylar Ages began) and one for each columnist. The Mr. Silver Age one is the only on-line message board he runs (as opposed to columnists like Peter David, Tony Isabella and Captain Comics, who have their own long-time boards elsewhere). The Mr. Silver Age board already has several features, including a full table of contents for his book, Baby Boomer Comics, and several long-gone features from 1990s issues of CBG.

Check it out here.

San Diego Comicon gets sneak preview of new Eisner documentary film

A 45-minute preview of "Will Eisner: The Spirit of an Artistic Pioneer" will be shown at this month's Comicon International in San Diego.

According to a press release from filmmaker Andrew Cooke:

WILL EISNER: THE SPIRIT OF AN ARTISTIC PIONEER chronicles the brilliant innovator's astonishingly prolific life, beginning with his modest upbringing in Depression-era New York City, into his burgeoning career at the birth of comics in the mid-1930s, and all the way up to the completion of his final graphic novel, The Plot, shortly before his passing in January.

In interviews with such luminaries as Stan Lee, Denis Kitchen, Kurt Vonnegut, Art Spiegelman, Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Gil Kane, and with as yet unseen home movies, audio tapes (with Jack Kirby, Milton Caniff, Gil Fox), and newly uncovered archival photographs, the documentary honors the true master of sequential art as never before.

A 45 minute preview of Andrew and Jon Cooke's documentary will premiere on Thursday, July 14 at 1:00pm in Room 8.


There's an official site for the film here.