No Was All He Said: SDCC Hotel Sales Start 3/29

Considering we here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are still waiting with bated breath to book the room of our choice for San Diego Comic-Con 2012, I would like to inform you that there is, as of yet, no word on when convention hotel sales will start, and that you shouldn’t bother looking, and to go fuck yourselves besides.

However, Amanda reminded me that we at least pretend towards things like “journalistic integrity” and “simple human compassion,” so I guess I need to tell you that it all starts Thursday, March 29th, at noon Eastern time. You can book your room via the Comic-Con hotel page, or via  phone at 1-877-55-COMIC. Although if you love me, you won’t.

Cognitive Dissonance: Mark Waid on Digital Comics

Sometimes people ask me why Amanda, Trebuchet, Pixiestyx, Lance and I bother to run a comics Web site when not only is there no money in it, but when it takes so much Goddamned time on top of our day jobs that actually pay for the comics (and liquor) it takes on a daily basis to endure said day jobs.

Until recently, I could only briefly stop and consider how I might possibly articulate my 35+ year relationship with comics, shrug my shoulders and thell them to fuck off and mind their business. However, now I can refer them to this recent video by legendary comics writer Mark Waid, who describes what it was like to be a comics fan growing up in the pre and nascent direct market world.

Turning Back With No Turning Back: The Lizard Returns To Spider-Man

Thanks to the hectic nature of a weekend that’s contained St. Patrick’s Day, a visit with my tax guy where I learned my coming federal refund, and a trip to my local electronics retailer to piss that refund away on a jacked-up tablet PC to help faciliate more effective reporting at SDCC this July (At least that’s the excuse I’m using to justify dropping the coin), it has been difficult to keep up with the goings-on at this weekend’s Wondercon in Anaheim, CA. Frankly, by about our second bar yesterday afternoon, it was difficult to keep up with the going-on in my my own pants (“I’m actually peeing in the bathroom, and not dreaming I’m peeing in the bathroom while I’m busily pissing myself on the couch, right? Right? …who am I talking to?”).

But when I finally managed to find the time to filter through the Wondercon announcements after a busy morning whimpering and cleaning the couch, one particular item jumped out at me: Marvel’s announced the return of The Lizard starting in Spider-Man issue #679. Which, on one hand, is in no way surprising; the issue’s due out about a week before the Amazing Spider-Man movie’s scheduled to be released in theaters, and if there’s one thing comics do well in the face of movie publicity, it’s try to match the books with the flick… and fuck it up. After all, this is the industry that killed Batman just before The Dark Knight make a bazillion dollars. So I’m less surprised over Marvel’s bringing back The Lizard than I am that they’re not bringing back Gwen Stacy (“Oh, Peter! I was absorbed by the Phoenix Force! No? Howzabout I’m a clone? Um… Ultrons? Just shut up and give me your comics money.”).

So the concept of writer Dan Slott and artist Giuseppe Camuncoli bringing The Lizard back wasn’t exactly exciting. The art that debuted at Wondercon, however…

Ms. Marvel Gets Promoted To Captain

This is in no way at all inspired by Rosie The Riveter...or Frank Quitely.

Yesterday at Wondercon in Anaheim, California, Marvel announced that starting this July, the character currently known as Carol Danvers, aka Ms. Marvel, will move into the role of Captain Marvel – complete with a haircut and costume change. Character concept designs were developed by Jamie McKelvie. Cover art will be handled by Ed McGuinness on issues 1 and 2, with Dexter Soy on interior art. Writing the new series will be Kelly Sue DeConnick (Osborn: Evil Incarcerated, Castle: Deadly Storm w/ Brian Michael Bendis). Says DeConnick:

My pitch was called ‘Pilot’ and the take can pretty much be summed up with ‘Carol Danvers as Chuck Yeager,’” says DeConnick. “Carol’s the virtual definition of a Type A personality. She’s a competitor and a control freak. At the start of our series, we see Carol pre-Captain Marvel, pre-NASA even, back when she was a fiercely competitive pilot. We’ll see her meeting one of her aviation heroes and we’ll see her youthful bravado, her swagger. Then over the course of the first arc we’re going to watch her find her way back to that hungry place. She’ll have to figure out how to be both Captain Marvel and Chuck Yeager—to marry the responsibility of that legacy with the sheer joy being nearly invulnerable and flying really [expletive] fast.

Huh. Chuck Yeager? That sounds a bit similar to the pitch her husband, Matt Fraction, gave when he announced his plans for Invincible Iron Man back in February 2008:

Tony Stark is equal parts James Bond and Chuck Yeager–a pioneer, a test pilot, an engineer, an adrenaline junkie visionary.

Well, Chuck Yeager is pretty cool. I suppose it’s entirely possibly that DeConnick just picked up a Chuck Yeager comparison through some kind of idea osmosis from being in such close proximity to Fraction for so long. Heck, now that Rob lives with me he can tell you exactly how and why you need to temper eggs before adding them to a custard. And he’ll only whimper a little bit when you ask him. I don’t see why he gets upset. Those brain cells were just going to be killed by whiskey anyway.

But is there anything else going on with this relaunch that calls to mind similarities with other creative properties?

The Posing Dead: Kirkman Publishes Walking Dead’s Michonne’s Origin In Playboy

When it comes to The Walking Dead, the closest thing that comic book has to a superhero is Michonne.

First appearing in The Walking Dead #19 by just wandering up in front of the prison where Rick and crew had taken refuge (Whoops; spoiler alert for people who only watch the AMC TV show! But if you’re one of those people, quick fucking around and go buy the comics, already). She’s a badass, katana-swinging ninja with a killer’s heart, an imaginary friend and Jack Bauer’s sense of justice. And most interestingly, she has a hazy, ambiguous past. Writer Robert Kirkman has truly made Michonne The Walking Dead’s Man With No Name.

Michonne’s origin has been long-awaited by fans of The Walking Dead, and probably by people like my Local Comic Store Owner, who knows me by name and asks me to stop calling him The Governor, because there’s a good chance that that story would get people who normally only buy the trade collections of The Walking Dead to also buy that individual issue.

Well, Robert Kirkman has announced that our waiting is over. Yesterday he announced that he will be publishing Michonne’s origin story. With art by regular penciler Charlie Adlard. And it’s available today.

In Playboy Magazine.

Wait, what?

A Republic Serial Villain: More Before Watchmen News

A hair late on this news, but DC Comics has announced the release dates for the first four issues of Before Watchmen. Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke, Silk Spectre by Cooke and Amanda Connor, Comedian by Brian Azzarello and J. G. Jones, and Nite Owl by J. Michael Straczynski, Joe Kubert and Andy Kubert will all drop on June 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th respectively… although if DC really wanted to announce that kind of decisive action, they should have gotten Dan DiDio to stand in front of a bank of flat-screens and say, “I released them thirty-five minutes ago.”

The books will be $3.99 a pop, or $4.99 for the digital combo pack if you want your childhood… shall we say affected… on your tablet, phone or computer. You can see the covers to these first four issues after the jump.

Crisis On Infinite Comics

A couple of weeks ago, Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada posted a few cryptic and interesting tweets, starting with, “The future is ∞”. Initially, we at Crisis On Infinite Midlives didn’t pay as much mind as many did because we figured Joe had just looked at our Twitter profile and suddenly realized you could use the ∞ in tweets (about an hour before Joe’s tweets, we had just gotten into a Twitter exchange with Marvel exclusive artist Mike Deodato, after all).

Speculation on the meaning of the tweets ran rampant, from the start of a new line of comics from Marvel, to a New 52-style reboot (But Marvel doesn’t reboot! And Miles Morales has always been at war with Eastasia!) to a baffled suspicion that Joey Q just found Wingdings in his font list, thus officially moving boldly into the state of the art digital technology, provided it’s 1996.

However, at this past weekend’s South By Southwest festival in Austin, TX, Marvel announced what Infinite Comics really means: three digital-only comics, written by Mark Waid and co-written and drawn by Stuart Immonen, tying into the upcoming Avengers Vs. X-Men event.

Well, just calling them “digital-only” comics is selling the thing a little bit short… or hyping them a little bit too much.

In My Tommy Hilfiger Hoodie: DC Debuts Rebooted Shazam

DC Comics debuted a teaser image of the Gary Frank-redesigned Shazam (née Captain Marvel) in this morning’s New York Post. I’m guessing that writer / DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns decided that the redesign of a niche character who’s been unable to carry his own book for around 20 years, and who’s appearing as a backup feature in Justice League, was news too earthshattering to relegate to the ghetto of the comics-related press… and further guessing that the Post ran with it due to a need to fill column inches thanks to a sudden unexpected dearth of Lindsay Lohan candid upskirt vagina pictures.

Nerdpocalypse Begins: San Diego Comic-Con 2012 Passes Sold Out

Let me tell you a story: in March 2006, hotel sales began for that year’s San Diego Comic-Con at noon eastern time. I logged into the sales Web site, picked a few likely hotels, went out to lunch, called Amanda to get her opinions on where we might like to stay, returned to the day job and attended an hour-long meeting, and booked the room at about 3 p.m. Flip ahead about two months, when I realized, “Huh… if we’re gonna actually do this, I should book a flight and get, you know, passes to the actual Goddamned convention…” and I logged in and got four-day passes without a hitch.

That was 2006, and our first SDCC. It is now 2012. Passes for this year’s SDCC went on sale yesterday at 11 a.m. eastern time. By 11:30 a.m., all four-day passes were sold out. By straight-up noon? Tough luck, Charlie; yer either in or yer out.

Kicks To The Skull, Prices Reasonable

We haven’t talked a lot about Skullkickers here because frankly, it flies a little under our radar despite being one damn fun comic book. It’s a story about two fantasy adventurers – one an alcoholic dwarf, the othe an alcoholic classic Conan type, only with a foul mouth and a gun – for hire to the highest bidder. Or any bidder. Think Lord of The Rings with a quualude habit. Or a messy, serialized Uwe Boll film that’s actually fun to watch.

The Image book became a hit quickly, selling out its early issues quickly enough that for a while it could be hard to find those comics to catch up… not that you need a lot of backstory to understand “Drunks… monster(s)… FIGHT!” The difficulty in hunting down back issues is, however, no longer an excuse for not checking the book out, because creator Jim Zub is releasing the book from the first issue on the Web. A page a day. For nothing. Gratis. Bupkis. Which is not a business plan that the protagonists of the book would embrace.

What the hell, Jim?