Well, the big comics-related news today is that Heath Ledger won a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor last night for his role in “The Dark Knight” as the Joker. What does this mean for the comics biz? Probably not a durned thing. It’s cool that comic-based performance won the award, but DC has already tried to piggyback on “The Dark Knight” and it’s gone nowhere. As it is, I’m glad Ledger received the Oscar, and it’s too bad we lost such an unbelievable actor so soon.

As for the other Oscars… I dunno. An unusually small number of surprises this year. No dark horse winners — the winners that everyone expected — “Slumdog Millionaire,” Heath Ledger, “Wall-E,” “Man on Wire” — all took home their awards. (Isn’t it weird that the actors from “Slumdog” didn’t get any acting nominations?)

I am relieved that “Benjamin Button” didn’t take Best Picture. I didn’t see that one, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen trailers that bad for a high-profile movie before, and I don’t know anyone who thought it was worth a bucket of warm spit.

Although I also gotta say — I really wish they’d quit giving the Makeup and Special Effects Oscars to movies like “Benjamin Button.” I enjoy those awards more when they go to horror and sci-fi movies, the way God intended.

Any other interesting things out there? Let’s review the linkdump file…

* The Archie McPhee catalog has the world’s freakiest, coolest stuff.

* A bunch of fascinating, beautiful photographs of deserted, abandoned, and ruined places.

* Neil Gaiman’s Hugo-winning Lovecraft/Sherlock Holmes story “A Study in Emerald” — collected in convenient and entertaining PDF format.

Before I get too far, I’d like to point out that “Being Human” — the BBC horror/dramedy I wrote about a couple of days ago — is going to be aired sometime this year on BBC America. Probably won’t mean much to me, ’cause I can’t afford cable, but for those of you who can get BBC America, you’ll be able to see this show. (Of course, it seems likely that we’ll be able to get some episodes through iTunes, too.)

And in news of “When Nerds Go Bad,” here’s an article about a guy who robbed a convenience store with a Klingon sword.

Okay, let’s get a few reviews out of the way, oy?

The Umbrella Academy: Dallas #3

The Seance has been captured by cartoon-headed super-assassins Hazel and Cha-Cha but he manages to psychically communicate with Spaceboy, who finally gets his fat butt off the couch. Unfortunately, Seance still gets killed anyway. Then he meets God, who’s a cowboy. He’s a fairly dim cowboy, actually. And though he doesn’t much like Seance, he knows the Devil won’t like him either, so he returns him to life. Meanwhile, Number Five tells Rumor about the time he spent in the future as an elderly, cybernetically- and genetically-enhanced time-assassin.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m still amazed that this series has been so good and so fun. Seriously, first time I heard of it, I figured it’d just be a little vanity project for the singer from My Chemical Romance. Lo and behold, Gerard Way is actually one heck of a writer!

Justice Society of America #23

Who’s leaving, who’s coming back? Well, Hawkman’s gotten kicked out. Good. Weird shirtless, crabby, winged, mace weirdo. Amazing-Man and Citizen Steel are out. Boo! They were both cool. Magog’s out, Lightning is in, Wildcat Junior is in, Cyclone is in, Damage is in, and Atom-Smasher wants back in. The main part of the story focuses on Black Adam and Isis, and it’s creepy. Isis has been held prisoner by Felix Faust, and he’s used a spell to make her unable to move. Nothing specific or concrete is shown, but it’s very heavily implied that Faust has been raping her. Like, for months. Black Adam tracks them down, frees Isis, and knocks Faust around a little, then it’s (again) implied that Isis, um, tears his manly bits off. And she wants revenge on the whole world, so she and Black Adam break into the Rock of Eternity, beat the stuffing out of Billy Batson in his grey-haired wizard Captain Marvel phase, and take away his powers.

Verdict: I’m gonna thumbs-down this one. There’s way too much rape and junk-ripping in more adult-oriented comics without dragging it into the Justice Society’s book. Could the same result (Isis wanting revenge on the world and attacking Captain Marvel) have been accomplished without pointlessly and gratuitously subjecting more characters to rape and torture? Oh, you betcha.

Wonder Woman #28

An injured Wonder Woman mobilizes her Gorilla City allies, Nemesis, Wonder Girl, and Donna Troy in the fight against Genocide. Much hitting occurs. Much, much hitting. Mixed with some angst. But mostly hitting.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Bored now.

Here’s a collection of random links, nearly all of them comics-related, that I’ve found entertaining over the past few days.

• The great Norm Breyfogle, a guy who’s done amazing work on almost every character he’s ever drawn, including Batman, Spider-Man, the Spectre, American Flagg, and dozens of others, is going to be drawing Archie soon.
• In other “Archie” news, Kevin Church digs up some clips from a TV pilot called “To Riverdale and Back Again“.
• The Kirby Alphabet.
• Gay characters in comics.
• Kate Beaton draws funny comics about Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Catherine the Great!
• The 50 Most Loathsome People of 2008.
• Editorial cartoonist Ben Sargent’s evolving images of George W. Bush.
• David Rees is shutting down his political cartoon series “Get Your War On.”
• Kevin Melrose looks at some stories about comics and the economy.
• The Helsinki Complaints Choir.

* From the vague descriptions I’d read, I thought it was pretty likely that this comic book starring Wonder Woman and fashionista Diane von Furstenberg would be really odd, but I don’t think I’d ever imagined it would be this odd.

* I know I’ve been telling you and telling you to pick up Aaron Williams’ awesome “PS238” comic, and here, Aaron gives us a few hints about what the future may hold for the kids in Wonderburg.

* Kalinara played a fun little game recently — she picked ten characters, kept ’em secret, and asked folks to give her hypotheticals to see how they’d react in certain situations. Sounds complicated, but actually very simple and fun. Check it out.

* For my pal Swampy: Greedo gets even greener.

I wanted to throw out a quick heads-up about a new blog I’ve added to my blogroll — it’s The Kid’s Comic Book Reviews.

What is it? It’s a bunch of comic reviews by a seven-year-old kid — and they’re not short, barely-thought-out micro-reviews, either. They’re lengthy, complete reviews of everything from artwork to plot and character. Even better, they’re fun to read, and they give a perspective we don’t see that often around the blogosphere.

Give the Kid a read — I think you’ll like him.

Here’s a stack of links I’ve been saving up for you guys.

* Whatever happened to the kids from “Peanuts” after the comic strip stopped? Depends who you ask. I’ve always loved Peter Gillis’ version of their future. This one is probably a bit less likely, but anything that has a futuristic cybernetically-enhanced Charlie Brown killing off the soldiers from Beetle Bailey’s Camp Swampy is probably worth reading.

* The “Project: Rooftop” blog periodically gets artists to create a new look for famous comic characters — their latest project is a redesign of the Man of Steel…

* PETA, of all people, has picked out a list of the top animal-friendly superheroes.

* Maxo ponders whether the weakening economy will affect comics sales.

* Aaron Williams, creator of “PS238” and “Nodwick,” has a blog crammed with cool stuff? Muy excellente!

* Snell is not at all impressed with DC’s fairly weak attempts to catch up with Marvel’s work on digital comics.

* A short fan film about Power Girl trying to get a normal job. It’s pretty amazing how well the actress playing Power Girl embodies the character — I mean, sure, she looks good in the costume, but she really gets her personality perfectly.

 

I don’t often have a really good chance to throw some shout-outs to other comics bloggers. But over the past few weeks, Snell at “Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep” has really been knocking ’em out of the park. For instance:

• He completely crushes the pitiful spectacle of DC’s “Countdown”;
• And then, just for fun, he crushes it again;
• He reveals the hidden secret of Marvel’s “Civil War”;
• He points out the big problems with superhero resurrections;
• He comes up with the perfect villain for the new “Indiana Jones” movie;
• And finally, he’s got Stan Lee flipping you off!

So go read his stuff. He’s got good writing, excellent analysis, lots of funny observations, and he was the first comics blogger outside of Bahlactus’s “Friday Night Fights” to link to me. 🙂

* Joe Simon, visionary co-creator of Captain America, on creating Cap, the new Cap, and creator’s rights.

* Could comics — particularly the extremely Islam-friendly “99” comic previously profiled here — be used as a tool to fight terrorism? Could be. (Seriously, y’all click on that article. Gotta be one of the best articles on comics I’ve ever seen from the mainstream media. Not a single “Biff Bam Pow! Comics for Grown-ups?!” in the entire article.)

* Every piece of cool trivia you’d ever want to know about Mike Mignola, Guillermo del Toro, Hellboy comics, and the latest Hellboy movie. “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane voicing the ectoplasmic Johann Kraus? Fantastic!

* The moderately notorious Gordon Lee censorship case out of Rome, Georgia, has been resolved, as the prosecution has dropped all charges. This has been one of those cases where it was pretty clear that the prosecution was playing dirty pool to try to run their local comics shop out of business — they even purposely defied the judge’s orders so they could get a mistrial and run up the defendant’s legal bills some more. Heck, back in November, the local paper published a complete throat-punch of an editorial denouncing the prosecutors’ methods.

And finally: Via Ragnell: This is the awesomest thing in the history of awesome.

From left to right: Catwoman, Barbara Gordon, Zatanna, Black Canary, Power Girl, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batwoman, Vixen, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn.

Click here for a larger version.

Superheroines rock.

 

So the heirs of Jerry Siegel have been awarded copyright of Action Comics #1. Lots of people seem to be freaking out about this. And it bothers me not one bit. Is DC gonna quit publishing Superman comics? Are the Siegels going to start publishing their own Superman comics in competition with DC? The answers to both questions are pretty obviously NO. Read this for some solid facts and info. This is nothing to get worried about, and it’s probably past time that the Siegel family got some of the money that the company owed their dad. This isn’t an injustice at all, and the Siegels aren’t the bad guys. This is a simple business dispute, and it’ll be resolved behind the scenes where it won’t affect our comics one smidgen.

In completely unrelated news:

* Behold Thor, God of Heavy Metal Thunder!

* The return of Classics Illustrated.

* The impact of Jewish creators on the comic book industry’s creation.

* Star Wars zombies!

I’ve got neither the time nor the inclination to do much of a post today. So you’ll have to make do with a few of these random links.

* If you’ve never heard of Rob Liefeld… count yourself lucky. He’s widely considered the worst and most painfully inept artist working in comics today. He got popular in the ’90s, when style-over-substance artwork was all the rage, but unlike a lot of popular artists in the ’90s, he’s actually been getting worse as the years pass. Anyway, here’s a link to a bunch of his worst drawings, with appropriately funny and crude commentary.

* Valerie D’Orazio is printing some excerpts from a book she’s writing about the comics industry and growing up geek. Go check out Part One, then go read the rest of her site for some more goodies.

* Did you know that Orson Welles planned to make a Batman movie with an all-star cast back in the 1940s? Is it true? Definitely not. But it’s probably the best comics-related hoax ever.

* New costumes for Wonder Woman? Of course, they won’t make it into the comics, but they look like good fun.

* We’ve talked before about how much I love heavy metal, right? Check out “Brutal Legend,” a video game coming out next year. Designed by Tim Schafer, who put together games like “The Secret of Monkey Island,” “Full Throttle,” “Grim Fandango,” and “Psychonauts”. Click “Live Gig” to see the game’s trailer — yes, it is the most METAL computer game in history. Vocal actors include Jack Black, Rob Halford, Ronnie James Dio, and Lemmy from Motorhead. Numerous metal bands are providing songs for the soundtrack. I hope they release this for PC so I don’t have to go out and buy a console…