One of ComicBookMovie’s readers stumbled across the Green Lantern shoot yesterday, at the Old Point Bar, 545 Patterson Drive, New Orleans. Got some shots… and a close up revealed Ryan Reynolds’ ring!

Anyone else in the area fancy walking by? Maybe with a zoom lens or something. Just to make sure he hasn;t got an Error Ring, of course…

But just in time for retailer’s Final Order Cut-Off, Marvel have confirmed to retailers that the actual title of the mysterious H.O.H is Hulked Out Heroes, or for it’s full title

WORLD WAR HULKS: HULKED-OUT HEROES #1-#2
Written by JEFF PARKER
Pencils and Covers by HUMBERTO RAMOS
Spinning from the shocking twist ending of FALL OF THE HULKS, Jeff Parker (WORLD WAR HULKS: ALPHA, AVENGERS VS. ATLAS, THUNDERBOLTS) and Humberto Ramos (SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, X-MEN) bring you the most incredible new character from the House of Ideas: HULKPOOL! What sacrifices will he make for the greater good? What horrible decisions will change the world as we know it? And what do Devil Dinosaur, Rawhide Kid, Rama Tut, and Bluebeard the Pirate have to do with this? Find out this April in HULKED-OUT HEROES!
40 PGS.(each)/Rated T+ …$3.99 (each)

Oh boy. Here are both covers… Hulkpool indeed…

TOLDJA is still TM to Nikki Finke. She hasn’t asked for any money yet and we’re happy to keep it that way.

Bleeding Cool has run a number of articles on problems at Devil’s Due regarding paying its creators. Citing issues with increased returns from Diamond Book Distributors, publisher Josh Blaylock has stated that his income has been slashed and creators have born the brunt.

One was Tim Seeley, a Devil’s Due employee and creator of the Hack/Slash comic book. He was estimated to be owed thousand of dollars by Devil’s Due and, in addition thirty thousand is owed to the artists on the book – which has seen delays as a result.

Tim’s dilemma has been this – does he take Hack/Slash away from Devil’s Due to a publisher that may give it the push it needs, but in doing so risk never seeing those tens of thousands of dollars again, and possibly doom Devil’s Due by taking away its best selling title? Or does he keep the book at Devil’s Due and use it to pressure the company to pay up?

He’s been hemming and hawwing for some time. But this weekend it was announced that he’s taken the plunge and pulled Hack/Slash to Image.

But what about all those unpaid artists? Tim Seeley has told me he’s taken out a  loan to pay off the unpaid artists, owed money by Devil’s Due. It’s not his debt, but it’s one he feels responsible for. The money owed by Devil’s Due to Tim has been cleared in exchange to Tim taking the comic away from Devil’s Due before the contract period is up. And taking on Wildstorm work should see him able to pay that loan off sooner, while he waits for Image money to come through, or the possible trickle from Devil’s Due.

It’s a tough decision, it’s a brave and honourable approach and it’s something to be admired in an industry of snake oil salesmen.

Here’s to you, Seeley.

Firstly, if this is a big success, it could be game over for many comic book reportage sites such as this one, as CBR has covered Longbox in its comics news reportage. Hey Rantz, how about a button so people can flip to Newsarama or Comics Alliance or IGN or, hem hem, Bleeding Cool? Or has money already changed hands?

It’s a very busy site, lots of things are flashing at me, from featured titles to lots of icons, to CBR taking up half the page. I’m not quite sure what I’m meant to be looking at. Still thet are throwing lots of books at me, Suburban Glamour, Witchblade, Punks: Summer Special… let’s try Suburban. I love a bit of Jamie McKelvie…

Okay, I can’t access any of the featured comics or add them to my cart. Buttons not working yet. Let’s try on the right hand side, there’s Cerebus Archives there, which Diamond famously stopped carrying. Will LongBox do a better job?

Okay I’ve just realised I haven’t set upo an account which is why nothing’s working. Setting up now.

Oh it doesn’t like where I’ve got the @ symbol on my keyboard. That’s tricky to type in an e-mail address. Let me try…

Oh there it is. It thinks my quote marks are the @ symbol. Okay, done.

No, still nothing’s going in my cart. There’s a list of all sorts of comics from various publishers, with info boes on each, but I can’t access any of them…Image, Dark Horse, Top Shelf Avatar and… wait… DC Comics? Longbox have signed a deal to distribute DC Comics work digitally? Okay, that’s news. What’s there… The Collected Preacher, Flash: Rebirth and Faces Of Evil: Deathstroke. None of them work yet, is this just filler copy or has Longbox managed to crack what everyone else has failed to so far and is distributing DC comic material digitally?

I instant message William Christensen of Avatar, on his way to meet with Diamond Book Distribution. He’s surprised that Avatar titles are up there… no deal has been done as of yet. This must be filler copy. A deal hasn’t been done. But it could be the shape of things to come…

Let’s try some other buttons… okay there we go, Store. Ah, that does let me add things to the cart. There are only a few to choose from Darkness, Phonogram, Suburban Glamour, Wanted, Punks, Robotika and Witchblade, issue 1 of all, 2 of Punks. Let’s choose Suburban Glamour again.

Okay that works. Add it to my cart… go the the cart… download it (for free, this is a promotional thing I guess)… doo doo doo doo dooo… and there is it. Suburban Glamour for free, legally with some kind of watermark to stop it being too naughty. And it reads… fine.

There’s a thing to read pages at the bottom, looks like there’s chapter and comic book issue options… all seems to work fine. I don’t know how to turn the header and footer space on and off though – which means that I can’t quite get the page size as if I acquired this comic through naughty means.

Okay, lets download all the comics I can in one go. That takes a little longer… but it works. I can flip between issues and read them quite happily. Now let’s try looking at one or two naughty files I have on my hard drive.

They work too. This is the thing, there is no reason for someone who just reads illegal comics not to download this thing as a reader, if only to provide handy storage and sorting for his files. And then, isn’t it so much more convenient to download a comic on the day of release for 99c than to trawl the various message boards looking for rapidshare links?

As for the regular comic book reader, well we’re being trained to read previews digitally now and the youngest have never known anything but the digital option. The comics read well, they are easy to get hold of, yeah I mean if this does become a viable option for day-of-release Marvel and DC Comics, things will change. A small percentage drop in print comics readers could see half the comic shops forced to close, seeing the major publisher’s footholds fall away just as they are dipping their toes in this new market.

The one person this is less likely to appeal to is the casual reader. You have to download the program before reading. If it had been preinstalled in the iPad, that would have been a big boon. You are requiring people to take multiple steps between curiosity about a comic and reading that comic. For many, actually stepping into a comic shop may be the easier option.

I honestly think Longbox needs a streaming Flash reader in order to take off properly, just as the BBC iPlayer did. But for now, this is a decent enough comic reader, with a decent enough structure to work in.

I just wish there was a little less CBR…

RossWatch:

SciverWatch: From MegaCon, Ethan Van Sciver is working on a new mini-series with Gail Simone.

BitOfAStretchWatch: Columnist who once read Ex Machina tries to see how the health reform debate might be recreated as a graphic novel.

KickAssWatch: There will be a KickAss 2: Balls To The Wall panel at San Diego Comic Con. Already.

CapWatch: Add Ryan Phillipe’s name to the list of people who have confirmed they’ll be auditioning to be Captain America.

BoratWatch: Sacha Baron Cohen will star in the Martin Scorcese adaptation of the kinda-a-graphic-novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Oh and he’ll probably be in Men In Black III. I so want to have a go at that film’s logo design. M III B.

TabloidWatch: The Jedward-As-Batman-Villains story first reported in Bleeding Cool has hit the tabloids even as their act is dropped by Sony.

Only a few weeks after the first appearance of Superman, Action Comics #1 (8.0 CGC) hit a million dollars, only for the first appearance of Batman, Detective Comics #27 (8.0 CGC) to beat that by another $75,000 later that week.

Well, it transpires that Comicconnect.com, the people who sold the Action Comics #1 for $1 million, have acquired another copy with a CGC rating of 8.5, the highest ever graded copy of the comic by CGC. And they will sell it to the first buyer who offers the price that they will set.

CGC, Certified Guaranty Companu, are an industry-wide company that grade the preservation levels of comics books on a scale from 0 to 10, before “slabbing” them in a tamper-proof case. They have enabled comic book collectors and dealers a professional guarantee of the status of a comic book they wish to purchase, which has helped see certain sales of books rocket in value of late.

I understand Comicconnect.com paid more than the $1.075 million that Detective Comics #27 sold for, in a private sale, so the asking price is going to beat the new records.

Expect an announced sale later this year. Here’s the comic in question…

Indeed, only recently, Christoipher Handley of Iowa pleaded guilty of possession of  “obscene” manga as part of a plea bargain, and was sentended to six months jail for purchasing a small number of comics which are sold openly without sanction in Japan in corner stores and supermarkets.

For now, at any rate.

Because on Friday, the Tokyo city council is to meet to vote in a new law that will force manga and anime publishers not to sell works in the city’s provinces depicting sexual situations involving minors while restricting the access of minors to work that depicts “harmful materials” or “noxious publications” – rape and other violence. The law has been supported by radical mayor Shintaro Ishihara.

However, a number of prominent manga creators have publically opposed the legislation, including (breathe in)…

Fujiko Fujio A,Takao Saito, Juzo Yamasaki, Kenichi Kitami, Mitsuru Adachi, Rumiko Takahashi, Gosho Aoyama, Moto Hagio, Michiyo Akaishi, Wakuni Akisato, Hiroshi Motomiya, Makoto Ogino, Big Joe, Takeshi Ōmi, Uzuki Nakamura, Yudetamago, Takashi Sano, Tetsuya Chiba, Kenshi Hirokane, Kaiji Kawaguchi, Makoto Kobayashi, Takeshi Maekawa, Hiroki Yagami, Ken Akamatsu, Tohru Fujisawa, Kazuki Yamamoto, Kanji Sorasaki, Naoki Serizawa, Tetsuya Koshiba, Uchū Nishikawa, Waki Yamato, Jun Fukami, Mariko Nakamura, Nami Akimoto, Yasuyuki Kunitomo, Ryohei Saigan, Jun Hayase, Satosumi Takaguchi, Kaworu Watashiya, Masako Watanabe, Keisuke Itagaki, Kenji Hamaoka, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Takayuki Yamaguchi, Yoshiaki Tabata, Yousuke Takahashi, Akihito Yoshitomi, Yūki Yogo, Yasuhiro Imagawa, Yasunari Toda, Kenetsu Satou, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Masahiro Itosugi, Kenji Yamamoto, Koban Sameda, Makoto Uezu, Shigeru Morita, Hiraku Kaneko, Munenori Nawa, Haruna Ikezawa, Takashi Yamaguchi, Yoshitoshi ABe, Yun Kouga, Yasuhiro Nightow, Go Nagai, Nanae Sasaya, Keiko Takemiya, Kohei Nishino, Makoto Sato, Syuji Takeya, Shinji Inamitsu, Miki Tori, est em, Hiroko Matsuda, Hideo Shinangawa, Hisashi Eguchi, Banana Nangoku, Masaharu Inoue, Natsuki Sugihara/Kirico Higashizato, Tōru Sugita, Yūko Umino, Maico Shioya, Hozumi, Yukio Tamai, Ryoji Hido, COSiNE, Juichi Iogi, Miyuki Noma, Hidefumi Akino, Ume, Kagekusa Kimi, Takashi Kisaki, Miou Takaya, Yoshitoh Asari, Keitaro Arima, Yuji Kaida, Aya Kaida, Hotaru Umino, Benkyo Tamaoki, Jun’ichi Inoue, Hisao Tamaki, Natsuko Mori, Rasenjin Hayami, Tsubura Hase, Takeshi Nogami, Yohane Yamamoto, Kozo Shimokata, Ezuroku, Hironori Hazuki, Tsutomu Shindo, Hiroyuki Sanazura, Kiyoshi Shimizu, Kaoru Nagayama, Taku Koide, Kosetsu Tateno and Nagito Mikoshiro as well as publishers including Akita Shoten, Shonen Gahosha, Kadokawa Shoten, Shinchosha Kodansha, Hakusensha, Shueisha, Futabasha, Shogakukan and Leed, The Manga Department of Kyoto Seika University and The Net Business Innovation Research Consortium (NBI) industry group (with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Rakuten, and DeNA on their governing board) have also expressed their opposition, on the ground that this legislation is clear example of the restriction of freedom of expression.

The Anime News Network is putting up updates as and when they arrive..

Previously in 2006, this copy had been sold for $273,125.

While not as prominent a character as Superman or Batman, this issue was in remarkably good condition for its age, reflected by the Certified Guaranty Company preservation judgement of 9.6 – many comic books published today aren’t that well preserved when they’d been put on the comic book shelf. It was part of the famous Edgar Church “Mile High” Collection.

Of course I hear word that there’s a monster of a comic on the way that may put shame to all of these successful sales. More in an hour.

Adapted by Korean manhwa creator Young Kim, with constant supervision and involvement from Stephanie Meyer, this is likely to be the best selling English comic book this year – at least until Michael Jackson’s written graphic novel Fated is published.

Probably most people won’t like it – of at least profess not to. The Twi-hards will not see the characters in the way they picture them. The movie fans won’t see likenesses from the big screen. And comic readers will mock at every level at this intruder into the form that is outselling everything they love. It won’t matter, it will sell, and that first print is rather a conservative number.

And while bookstores will take the brunt, it’s likely comic shops will see a pick up in trade as a number of people will assume that the strange looking shop off the high street that they went in to once to buy a Hello Kitty Emo doll will be the place to sell Twilight: The Graphic Novel Vol 1.

Maybe a few comic publishers should do an After Twilight industry ad? Listing things like American Vampire, Dark Tower, Tomb Of Dracula, Preacher, Vamps, Bite Club, 30 Days Of Night, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Walking Dead, Crossed, Black Gas and the like… how hard could it really be?

Anyone fancy mocking up a poster or two?

It is impossible to describe how large a blow this would be for Marvel should they win, Jack Kirby’s creations and co-creations include Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, Ant Man, Fantastic Four, The X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, Silver Surfer and so much more.

The suit filed today follows a series of termination notices last year, and Marvel’s counter suit against the family, claiming that Jack Kirby’s work for Marvel as as a freelance agent.

With Stan Lee, Jack Kirby was responsible for one of the greatest moments of corporate comics creativity, revitalising the superhero market and expanding its appeal with concepts and characters that turned Marvel into the biggest English language comics publisher there is, and his creations have been bumping up Hollywood’s box office considerably of late – and look set to continue to do so as well.

Despite all this, Jack Kirby and his estate have never received a cent in royalties from Marvel, with no more payments than the original page rates.

Marvel and Jack Kirby had a number of differences during his working career, leaving, then returning, leaving, then returning. This issues including rights to his original art boards, rights to creative expression and rights to be credited for his role in the comics.

The instant reaction from some comic fans is fear, that their favourite characters may be taken away from them is such a case were successful. The lawsuit phrases this carefully;

With respect to Co-Owned Kirby Works, as of the respective Termination Dates, Defendants will jointly own the copyrights to such works for their renewal terms: both Plaintiffs and Defendants will have the non-exclusive right to exploit such jointly owned copyrights…

Which means you might get two Fantastic Fours!

The full complaint can be found here, also naming Marvel’s connection to Disney…