Their universe-wide reboot only weeks away, DC Comics has released 52 new logos for their books; they've been met with some praise and much griping. But what makes a good superhero logo? Maybe the design history of Daredevil (parts 2, 3, 4), The Hulk (parts 2, 3, 4), The Atom, (parts 2, 3), World's Finest (parts 2, 3, 4, 5, ), The Legion of Superheroes (parts 2, 3, 4, 5, Batman (previously) or Superman can shed a clue. [more inside]
posted by Toby Dammit X on Aug 25, 2011 - 30 comments

"...authorities would try to find the culprits and would seek to clean up the monument, but it was unlikely to happen right away."
posted by griphus on Jun 19, 2011 - 27 comments

Kerry Callen imagines What if DC published Marvel characters in the 1960's?, then follows up with What if DC published 1970's Marvel characters in the 1960's?. Bonus silliness: Galactus' Helmet Just Gets Happier and Happier!
posted by Artw on Nov 29, 2010 - 37 comments

Ah, digital comics. Originally viewed with a wary eye by the American comics industry, the rise of mobile devices has started to turn a few publisher's heads. We may look back and see 2010 as the year digital comics reached the tipping point.
posted by nomadicink on Sep 2, 2010 - 69 comments

The Brave and the Bold...Lost Issues! - in which Batman teams up with everybody.
posted by Artw on May 24, 2010 - 39 comments

Frankenstein Defeats Evil Computer. Mysterious Grass-Roots Gal-Revolt Rocks Gotham! Are Hippies Slowing Down Space Progam in Protest? Headlines ripped from the pages of such great newspapers as the Daily Bugle and the Gotham Gazette await you at Dateline: Silver Age.
posted by gamera on Apr 30, 2010 - 16 comments

Super-Social Networking: Superhero Facebook Status Updates
posted by griphus on Oct 5, 2009 - 25 comments

They've been rumoured to be an item for some time, but in X-Factor #45 Rictor and Shatterstar, formerly of X-Force (the most 90s comic of all time), finally kissed - giving the comics world two more confirmed gay superheroes and making the X-Men Universe Relationship Map out of date (Shatterstar creator Rob Liefeld has however vowed to undo it). Meanwhile over at DC flagship title Detective Comics is now fronted by the new lesbian Batwoman - ironically a character who was introduced to make Batman seem more hetro.
posted by Artw on Jul 4, 2009 - 107 comments

Fans of both Dead Space (and comic books in general), will be happy to learn that the first issue of the new comic book mini-series based on the game has been released online, in full, for free here. Not a fan of Dead Space but like comic books? There are lots of other comic books online that can be viewed for free, like stuff from DC Comics, Marvel and Image. There's also a few Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who comics online for your viewing pleasure (in fact you can even make your own with the latter).
posted by Effigy2000 on Jan 1, 2009 - 12 comments

For over the past year, John Seavey has been reading through Marvel's Essentials and DC's Showcase Presents reprints in order to examine the title comic's storytelling engine. From classic characters to barely-footnotes, much of the bedrock of Silver Age heroes are represented in the column's archives. [more inside]
posted by robocop is bleeding on Mar 18, 2008 - 18 comments

Co-creator of Spider-Man, Steve Ditko is famous for weird, distinctive art, his 1966 departure from Marvel Comics, and granting very few interviews in the course of his decades-spanning career, preferring to let creations such as The Creeper, the Objectivism-inspired Mr. A, and Squirrel Girl speak for him.
Okay, Squirrel Girl not so much.
Jonathan Ross turns the spotlight on the artist in the BBC4 documentary, In Search of Steve Ditko. Did they find him? Well, that's The Question, isn't it?
posted by Alvy Ampersand on Sep 23, 2007 - 26 comments

Hi, I'm a Marvel...and I'm a DC. A collection of videos on youtube targeting both the Mac/PC ads and comic book based movies. Ten videos so far, with more coming "Soon. I promise."
posted by CrunchyFrog on Jun 7, 2007 - 24 comments

Polite Dissent rings in the new year with the best and worst in comic book medicine from 2006. While this entertaining blog's subjects are not limited to four color minutiae, it is the source of some of the most entertaining posts. Please to enjoy Flatlining, Hippocrates, Originitis, and the scourge of a generation, Metal-Eating Disease!
posted by EatTheWeak on Dec 31, 2006 - 6 comments

David Cockrum has passed on. The cause of death was apparently complications from diabetes; he died peacefully, in his sleep. Comics fans would know him from a number of projects, amongst them Giant Size X-Men #1 where he helped introduce Colossus, Storm and Nightcrawler to the world, his run on the Legion of Super Heroes, and possibly his self-published work The Futurians. You can find some nice retrospectives on his career and what he did for Marvel and for DC Comics.
posted by mephron on Nov 26, 2006 - 27 comments

Election day 2006 - Whose side is your favourite superhero on? "The Spirit of Vengeance, Ghost Rider is the ultimate protest voter. He always votes against the incumbent and anyone who endorses helmet laws. Vengeance is his." [via]
posted by feelinglistless on Nov 8, 2006 - 18 comments

Just Imagine Stan Lee's Watchmen! Back in 2002, DC Comics extended an olive branch of comics industry peace to Stan "Excelsior!" Lee, the founder of rival Marvel Comics. The result was the Just Imagine line, wherein we find several DCU heroes reimagined in one-shot comics as only Stan Lee could. Some titles were good. Some were okay. Most were just so. But never in a million issues would DC have let him take on Watchmen -- perhaps the most critically-acclaimed and analyzed series this side of Maus. So since Stan couldn't or wouldn't, Kevin Church has.
posted by grabbingsand on Aug 25, 2006 - 41 comments

An official comic book adaptation of the 9/11 commission report is due to hit bookstores this month. The U.S. Army seeks an Arabic-speaking comic book creator. Meanwhile, an Israeli blogger suspects a Kuwaiti company of misusing Marvel and DC comics. These are just the latest incidents in a long-running history of using comic books for propaganda purposes, ranging from Mussolini and Hitler to Captain America vs. the Nazi-affiliated Red Skull to anticommunist comics for Catholic parochial schools to a phony Black Panther comic book created by COINTELPRO to a comic book of the American invasion of Grenada. However, my favorite site of comic book propaganda tends to focus on more innocuous domestic issues such as bicycle safety, USDA nutrition standards, and fighting crack cocaine. (OK, that last issue isn't so innocuous, but comic book propaganda about health & safety issues still generally blows.)
posted by jonp72 on Aug 4, 2006 - 38 comments

Girl-Wonder.org is a new site tackling the portrayal of women in comics, written in the same vein as Women in Refrigerators and sequential tart.
posted by FunkyHelix on Jun 15, 2006 - 18 comments

The Marvel Directory: from Abomination to Zzzax. On the other side, here's the Unofficial Who's Who in the DC Universe, from Abel to Zauriel.
posted by interrobang on Jun 1, 2004 - 16 comments

COMICON.com Splash is reporting that the DC Comics company has pulped the entire print run of the fifth issue of LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN because it reprinted an actual Victorian-era ad for a douche syringe that included the word 'vaginal'. The maker of the syringe was the MARVEL CO. It's not clear whether DC publisher Paul Levitz destroyed the comic because of the term or the reference to Marvel. Marvel Comics is, of course, DC Comics' main competitor.
posted by bjennings on Apr 28, 2000 - 3 comments