Amused in Review

Here's a cute little app that quizzes you on (grossly simplifiedm, 12-pixel) versions of Superhero Chest Symbols

Bear in mind that what it's showing you is 12 pixels representing the chest and waist of the hero/villain. Don't try and interpret it as a shot of the logo itself, or just part, or it'll confuse you.

For what it's worth, I scored 20/21 (I got the first one wrong because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be looking at).

Randy Milholland, of Something Positive fame (if fame is the right word), has a new comic:Midnight Macabre - Updating Monday Through Friday. It's set in 1981 and it'a about a young guy taking over a local TV station's late night hosted horror movie show (think Elvira, or SCTV's Count Floyd) when the old host dies on air. So far it's mostly set-up, but the real reason I bring it up is today's blog comment by Randy, apropos of publicists:

I want a publicist so I'll have someone to make things up for me. "Mr. Milholland was, of course, only kidding when he punched the reporter's child in the forehead and then had sexual relations with that piano. And, of course, it was completely an inside joke when my client hamstringed Noam Chomsky and pulled him into an alley way to feast upon the good professor's leathery flesh."

No idea what brought Chomsky to his mind in this context, but I bet that's a rarer¹ sentence than "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

crossposted to Logomacy

1 - though not a less probable one

Several webcomics, including one of my favorites--Wapsi Square, have formed their own cooperative. Personally, I think they're making too big a deal of the fact they're all moving from Keenspot, with motto "Spotless." That's the kind of thing that may feel good at the time, but is likely to be embarrassing a couple years down the road. But whatever.

Blank Label Comics

Blank Label Comics proudly announces a new approach to self-publishing for cartoonists. Blank Label is a cooperative group of cartoonists who are helping one another succeed as independents.

These six cartoonists, previously hosted at Keenspot, are banding together for cross-promotion and advertising. Each is using his proficiency in a particular aspect of the cartooning business to help the others — who are doing the same in return.

Six cartoonists form Blank Label Comics: Brad Guigar of Greystone Inn and Courting Disaster, Paul Southworth of Krazy Larry and Ugly Hill, Kristofer Straub of Checkerboard Nightmare and Starshift Crisis, Paul Taylor of Wapsi Square, Steve Troop of Melonpool, and David Willis of Shortpacked! and It's Walky.

My pal Jeff Parker points to an article in Variety.com - Graphic detail for Contrafilm

Continuing its search for new action-adventure franchises, New Line has licensed graphic novel "Interman."

Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson are set to produce via their New Line-based Contrafilm shingle.

Created and self-published by Jeff Parker, "Interman" concerns a young man raised in seclusion who discovers he was genetically engineered by the government to be a superhuman killing machine. The military is after him, and he has to fight his instinct to become a killer.

Congrats to Jeff. I hope he makes a ton of money from this, and that the film doesn't completely suck. That the adaptation is being "penned" by the screenwriter who brought us Exorcist: The Beginning doesn't exactly raise my hopes sky-high, but we'll see.