Comics Coast To CoastA comic podcast by comic creators

Major Spoilers is reporting today that The Ray was just announced as part of DC’s next wave of “New 52″ titles. The announced creative team is Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Jamal Igle. They are also reporting that The Ray is scheduled to be a 4 issue mini-series and not a full ongoing title. Apparently this title will feature a new Ray which will be Lucien Gates.

I am not overly familiar with this character and I honestly haven’t read anything from these writers which is a shame, because they are often lauded with praise about their run on Jonah Hex. However I am looking forward to this book because the writers do get so much praise and the artowork above looks spectacular. This new mini-series from DC will arrive on store shelves in December so keep an eye out.

Source – Washington Post
Via – Major Spoilers 

This past week marked the release of DC’s two biggest books in a long time, Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1. These two books mark the end of an era for DC comics and the ushering in of a new mindset and a new universe. One thing I noticed in Flashpoint #5 was a mysterious woman giving Barry advice. Admittedly she wasn’t hard to miss and as I read on I just took it for granted that I didn’t recognize her and she was just a character with which I was not familiar.

Today however Comic Book Resources is reporting that this mystery woman showed up in Justice League #1 (harder to spot this time) and their sources claim that she will be showing up in every single first issue that is coming this month. Now this makes me wonder if we are seeing the beginning of the first company wide event post-relaunch or possibly something else entirely. Will she be put in there to help readers transition from the old DCU to the new DCU, possibly helping to explain to us the changes that were made. I think it will be exciting to find out and I hope the mystery of her is revealed relatively soon. Now I will definitely be scanning each issue of the new series looking for her.

Source – Comic Book Resources

Today is the day that the DCU will change for good…at least for the foreseeable future. Justice League #1 and Flashpoint #5 are the only things that DC Comics is putting out today and they will lead DC in to a brave new world. I am cautiously optimistic about this new DC universe and I am looking forward to punching the clock at work today and rushing to the local comic shop to see if I can snag a copy of Justice League. Based on the articles I have read around the web it is looking more and more likely that this relaunch will be a success with previews of the new books and the first reviews of Justice League being generally positive.

I am generally more of a Marvel reader but I am really pulling for DC on this one. I started reading DC fairly recently and have been enjoying their characters and I look forward to seeing what these new interpretations are going to bring to the table. I also will enjoy not having to know 900 issues worth of continuity to fully grasp what is going on in the titles I am reading. I urge everyone who is a comic reader to give the new DCU a shot and pick up Justice League today. It could just be the greatest thing that came to comics in the last decade and only time will tell.

DC’s New 52 is mere days away and with it comes…not a new JSA comic book, at least not immediately. The Justice Society of America has been absent in the wake of DC’s upcoming relaunch and people across the internet and in comic book shops around the world were a little peeved. Fear not because as Bleeding Cool reported on Saturday the JSA are indeed coming back to comics in the wake of the relaunch and they are heading back to Earth 2. The creative team on the new JSA book will be James Robinson and Nicola Scott.

I haven’t personally read a lot of JSA comics but I did enjoy what I read. I look forward to seeing what they will do with this super team on their own Earth in the new DC multiverse after the relaunch.

Source – Bleeding Cool

Yesterday Dynamite Entertainment will be bringing a new Flash Gordon series to the store shelves. The new series will be named Flash Gordon – Zeitgeist and will be written by Eric Trautmann based on a story and design by Alex Ross and it will be illustrated by Daniel Lindro. This new series will be hitting store shelves in November and should be a lot of fun.

Dynamite Entertainment has a quote from Trautmann about the book:

“I couldn’t be happier about this project,” stated writer Eric Trautmann. “It is a genuine treat to be able to let my inner ‘pulpster’ out, and write in an idiom I rarely get to play in, which has a rich core of optimism and innocence. We’re very much approaching the comic as if it were the Flash Gordon movie we’d all want to see.

I am personally looking forward to this title and I plan on picking it up. I have always had a curious fascination with Flash Gordon although I don’t know to much about him. I think that this book might be the perfect spot for me to delve a little deeper in to the Flash Gordon mythos.

Source – Dynamite Entertainment Press Release

Yesterday Comixology announced the most recent update to their much praised comic reading app on the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. However, the press release on their site does not mention the update to 3.0 for Android devices so at this time I believe the update is only for iOS devices. The features in this update are pretty cool to say the least, one of which is increased load speed which is always a good thing.

Some of the new features include giving your digital store purchases their own tab at the bottom so that it doesn’t clutter up the “My Comics” tab with undownloaded comics. Also, users now have the ability to pause and resume comic downloads in order to prioritize which comic books they would like to download and read first. My personal favorite new feature is that you can now download comics in the background so that you can queue up and download your comics while you are using another app or while your device sits idle.

Here is a complete list of features coming in Comixology 3.0:

• Completely redesigned application
• Near instant launching
• Separate “Purchases” area that displays all owned comics
• New series groupings in store and “My Comics”
• Discover comics at much faster speeds
• Pause and prioritize downloads
• Background downloading
• Improved “Instant Search”
• Buy or continue reading the next issue at the end of a comic

Head over to Comixology by hitting the source link to see a video demo of Comixology 3.0 in action.

Source – Comixology Blog

DC reported yesterday that Jim Lee and Geoff Johns were on Sirius XM’s “Geek Time” show talking about the DC relaunch and how it felt working with each other for the first time on a comic book. During that interview they let slip who the first villain of the new Justice League series will be. I am fairly excited for the new villain because it is one that I am not personally familiar with but who I have heard a lot about. If you don’t want to be spoiled and you can’t tell by the picture then do not read on. The first villain for the new Justice League series will be the man…thing…that “killed” the Bat, Darkseid.

Source – DC’s The Source Blog

Recently the Harvey Award winners were announced at the Baltimore Comic-Con and iFanboy has the details. It looks like Marvel and DC made out pretty well with their awards. It is also pretty good to be a god as two Thor books made out with two awards each. I have to give iFanboy big credit for putting this list together. Here is a sample quote from the iFanboy post with the Harvey Award winners:

iFanboy:

And now, the winners:

BEST LETTERER

John Workman, Thor, Marvel Comics

BEST COLORIST

Jose Villarrubia, Cuba: My Revolution, Vertigo/DC Comics

BEST SYNDICATED STRIP OR PANEL

Doonesbury, Garry Trudeau, Universal Press Syndicate

BEST ONLINE COMICS WORK

Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton

BEST AMERICAN EDITION OF FOREIGN MATERIAL

Blacksad, Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido, Dark Horse Comics

BEST INKER

Mark Morales, Thor, Marvel Comics

BEST NEW SERIES

American Vampire, Scott Snyder, Stephen King and Rafael Albuquerque, Vertigo/DC Comics

Hit the source link to see the full post and the full list of award winners.

Source – iFanboy

It looks as though DC’s “New 52″ will initially be a financial success for the company. Comic Book Resources is reporting that with pre-orders alone, Justice League #1 is already over 200,000 copies sold. They are also reporting that another six titles from DC’s relaunch are also surpassing 100,000 pre-orders each. Whether this large increase in sales is going to drop off and is only sustained by speculation, or if the new relaunch has legs and will last is something only time can tell. These large upticks in pre-orders and sales have the ability to propel several DC titles to being the top sold books of 2011. Justice League #1 has the potential to be the first comic book in two years to surpass 200,00 sales in the direct market.

Via – Comic Book Resources
Source – Los Angeles Times’ Hero Complex

Today I stumbled across an excellent post over on Major Spoilers and I thought I just had to do a write-up of it over here. I have been listening to the Major Spoilers Podcast for quite a while now and I have been reading their blog and have heard several times about Matthew Peterson’s excellent theory on why time works the way it does in the Marvel Universe. Well the post I stumbled upon over there finally reveals Matthew’s full explanation of why time works the way it does in the Marvel Universe and why Franklin Richards is to blame. The article is incredibly well written and offers an incredible amount of detail, reasons, and fact behind this theory that is really well thought out.

I love crazy conspiracy theories like this and considering this is dealing with a personal passion of mine (comic books), it is a guaranteed grand slam for me. I urge everyone reading this to hit the link and check out the article and ponder to yourself at something Matthew only hints at….if this is why Marvel’s time is so weird then why is DC’s timeline skewed as well?

Source – Major Spoilers