My good pal Robert Thomas brought this one to my attention over the weekend. Robert dropped a German fanzine, Das Sagte Nuff devoted to Marvel Comics into the store for me to check out. Inside are several articles, all written in German, covering Marvel Comics worldwide - well, at least I expect that's what the articles are covering as the photos are plain to see. In amongst them all is an article covering Newton Comics with my name mentioned and several images which appear to be lifted straight from this blog. My images, my scans. I know what people will say, once it's on the internet it's public domain. These days it appears that once it's in print, it's public domain and frankly I don't have much of an issue with that. It's the sheer lack of manners that's gotten to me. If you want to use my work then do what I do - ask first. I've learned the hard way (and, in some cases, paid a higher price than would be expected) and in this day and a

Have a peek at the above video carefully. That is supposedly the costume test for the aborted Superman Lives film, which was in production for a number of years, and for which Tim Burton pocketed a cool five million dollars, with Nic Cage getting two million just for his autograph, oh, and to pose in a costume that you’d expect to see at a sex party, and a few others (such as Kevin ‘Silent Bob’ Smith) shared in a kitty worth an estimated $50,000,000. That’s right - $50,000,000 for a movie that never appeared. I, for one, believe that $50,000,000 was well spent. I mean, think of what might have been. Trust me, that’d not be a film you’d want to see, and not for the efforts of the film-makers themselves. On the surface of things a super-hero movie scripted by Smith, directed by Burton and starring Cage might not be such a bad thing. All three have links to the genre, hell when Cage changed his name from Coppolla to Cage, he took his last name from the comic book character Luke

More Grindberg art for people to check out. Now I've never really noticed this before until now, but a lot of Tom's Batman and Conan preliminaries are very, very reminiscent of John Buscema's rough pencil sketches. I found myself looking at a few of those Batman preliminaries and thinking about Tom and his art background, so I've decided to request an interview with the man - hopefully he'll accept. I'll be honest and say that I wasn't the greatest fan of his 1990s work, which I knew mainly from his work on Warlock and Infinity Crusade , along with the Silver Surfer, but these little bits and pieces that I've been picking up recently have given me an all new angle of appreciation. Certainly his preliminary art is fairly different to the published (end) result. In the meantime, his most recent work is the just published Thor annual - which I don't have yet, but will be tracking down and checking it out. Until then...

Just showcasing some of Tom Grindberg's very interesting preliminary art. Come tomorrow I'll give you an observation or eight...

What? You've not looked lately? Silly you! Over on Dave Simons web-site a pile of new art, with commentary from Dave and myself, has been slowly going up over the past two weeks. Go and check it out - there's stuff there that you might never have seen before and I know there's insights from Dave that you've never read. Go and see for yourself... http://www.dave-simons.com And remember, the site is still the only official Dave Simons web-site on the net, endorsed by Dave and his family.

So there's been new changes at both Marvel and DC. The Mouse now owns Marvel, angering a lot of people who believe that the Jack Kirby estate should be paid a percentage as Marvel is only worth what it is due to Kirby's vision. Let's not forget Steve Ditko, Don Heck, John Romita and quite a few others, but that just ain't gonna happen. Disney paid a staggering four billion for Marvel, essentially to buy the rights (and profits) to a few movies that have done surprisingly well of late. Still the money maker was always with DC - after all the last Batman flick grossed over a billion dollars alone and has become the only comic book related movie to spawn an Oscar. An amazing feat when you consider that, for many decades, all anyone identified Batman with was Adam West camping it up in some tacky gray underwear. While there's been a lot of ranting about the fate of the Marvel Universe now that Disney owns it I've yet to see anything, well, concrete. Tom Brevo

Hot on the heels of Disney buying Marve l comes this brilliant piece of news about the death of the Fantastic Four: ------------------- Fox is Rebooting Fantastic Four Source:Variety August 31, 2009 Variety reports that 20th Century Fox has begun overhauling the "Fantastic Four" movie franchise to take the Marvel property beyond the two films already made. Akiva Goldsman has been hired to oversee the reboot as producer. Michael Green, the co-exec producer of TV's "Heroes" who co-wrote Green Lantern, will write the script for the new Fantastic Four film. The 2005 Fantastic Four and 2007 sequel "Rise of the Silver Surfer" were directed by Tim Story and starred Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis. Since the deals for the reboot are just getting made, it is unclear if any of them will return. Fox controls the "Fantastic Four" movie franchise in perpetuity -- as long as it continues making the films. Marvel is a produ

Steve Rude is pleased to announce that his artwork, entitled "Tina", has been accepted into the "Rhythm, Movement, and Music juried exhibit. Response to the exhibit was exceptional with submissions of over 200 works of art. Professor Paul Andrus, judge for the inaugural exhibit, selected 38 works of art which included paintings, sculpture, jewelry, photography, and digital art for the SunDust Gallery inaugural exhibit. "Tina" was a one day job that Steve expanded on with slashes of color to simulate a larger emotional range than the model and backdrop gave him. The opening reception will occur on Friday evening, September 11, 2009 from 6pm to 9pm. The Rhythm, Movement, and Music exhibit is being held as part of the SunDust Gallery grand opening gala. SunDust Gallery 48 West Main Street #100 Mesa, AZ 85201 480-206-5895 www.sundustgallery.com

A few weeks back I sat here wondering what the hell was wrong with eBay lately, but I suddenly had the epiphany that I believe everyone who sells on eBay has - it's not eBay, it's the people who buy. Allow me to explain. We sell on eBay, as do a lot of people. Right now our sales are supplementing what little income I currently have and are also going a long way to funding the start-up of the shop . We generally sell comics, some magazines, some books, some CDs, clothing, the odd DVD and other items as we see fit. Nothing huge, although at times we do make a push and put a few hundred items up a week in order to get a cash flow in for a project or trip. Again, in this regard there's nothing unique about us, but clearly there's something unique about the people our items attract. In recent times we've had to tolerate the loss of over $1,000 in 'refunds'. In both cases we believe that both refunds were fradulent, but as we didn't add suitable track