Lykke Li - Breaking It Up

Nagraj Vs. Shakoora The Magician

Because you know that you have to see it now...

Comic Art - a set on Flickr

Eric Reynolds has posted scans of drawing made in his convention sketchbook by a variety of comic artists. (Hint: Click on the link above to see the Flickr set)

Alex Ross on The Black Terror

He was a popular comic book character throughout the bulk of the 1940s, and if Alex Ross, Jim Krueger and Mike Lily have their way, the Black Terror will be again.

As we’ve reported, Dynamite’s Project Superpowers universe will grow beginning in October as the Black Terror spins out of the main story into his own series, plotted by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger with pencils by Mike Lily , and covers and art direction by Ross.

As readers of Project Superpowers know, the Black Terror has been quite active...well, quite active since bring released from the magical urn that the Fighting Yank was tricked into trapping his allies in decades ago. Since his release, Terror has been shown to be more powerful than he ever was, and...edgy. He’s angry and confused both at what happened and the modern world he’s found himself in, and also, is desperate to find any hint of his sidekick Tim.

Torchwood Begins Season 3 Fliming

Filming for the third season of BBC AMERICA’s highest rated series ever, Torchwood, has begun in Cardiff, Wales. From creator Russell T Davis (writer of Doctor Who, Queer as Folk), the hit sci-fi series is scheduled to return in 2009 with the third installment titled Torchwood: Children of Earth.

The new season sees the Torchwood team embarking on a single action-packed adventure as they battle for the future of the human race against the fiercest force they have encountered.

The highly-motivated team is John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper and Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones. Other regular cast involved in their high-octane adventure are Kai Owen as Rhys Williams, Gwen's husband, and Tom Price as PC Andy.

Special guests in the five part series are Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who, The Thick Of It, Skins), who plays the role of Mr. Frobisher – a civil servant who is hiding a terrible secret, Paul Copely (Coronation Street, The Bill) as Clem – the survivor still haunted by his past, and Liz May Brice (Bad Girls, The Bill) as Johnson – the cynical covert government agent determined to expose Torchwood.

Russell T Davies said, 'The new series of Torchwood is hugely bold and promises to be bigger and better than ever – the audience is in for an amazing ride. This series is one big serial and the most ambitious story we've ever made, and we've got plenty of surprises in store.'

Julie Gardner, Head of Drama, BBC Wales, said, 'We hope to make Torchwood a gripping and surprising TV event with storylines that push our team into greater danger and sacrifice. Joining our main cast are some fantastic guest artists who will only add to making this unmissable TV.'

On September 16, 2008, BBC Video unleashes to U.S. stores, Torchwood: The Complete Second Season, a fully-loaded 5-disc DVD set with over three hours of bonus features ranging from deleted scenes and outtakes to Torchwood Declassified featurettes and more.

This past April, both Seasons One and Two of Torchwood debuted in the Top 10 for 'Top TV Seasons' on the iTunes Store and continue to be a hit for the online digital store.

Digital Savant: A different perspective

Because my job is to pay attention to Twitter, to blog regularly and to try to figure out when online trends are important enough to write about, I sometimes forget that there are people who see the bulk of what I do as a waste of mine and everybody else’s time.

Texans should be watching Gustav, forecaster says

Hopefully we will be further North at the time and miss the worst of this storm. Isn't moving fun?

Tropical Storm Gustav, which has been slow to leave Haiti, has a chance to hit some southeastern counties in Texas as a powerful hurricane as early as Monday.

Virgin Comics Shuts NYC Offices

NEW YORK, NY, August 26, 2008 Virgin Comics announced today that it will be reorganizing its operations and closing its New York office to consolidate in an LA base.

The Company is currently working with management to restructure the business and will release its future plans in the next few weeks.

Sharad Devarajan, CEO, said, 'We remain excited about the business and partnerships we have built through Virgin Comics and are working towards a restructuring that properly takes the business forward. The decision to scale down the New York operations and concentrate on core activities is due to the current macro-economic downturn and is in no way a reflection on the dedicated and valuable employees we have had the privilege to work with.'

Heavy Gear to Return to Roleplaying

Dream Pod 9 and Steve Jackson Games announced an agreement today for a new line of roleplaying products based on DP9's best-selling Heavy Gear.

'The world of Heavy Gear was always intended to support multiple gaming formats,' said Robert Dubois, Licensing Manager for Dream Pod 9. 'We've focused our efforts on the miniatures line, with Heavy Gear Blitz! We are overjoyed that a publisher with the experience of Steve Jackson Games is interested in continuing the RPG material.'

The line will launch with a new edition of Heavy Gear, bringing the Silhouette mechanics to their fourth edition. This core game will contain everything needed to create characters and roleplay in the world of Heavy Gear. Further releases will update Heavy Gear's best-known places and personalities, bringing the story up to date with the miniatures line. New releases will explore military hardware, locations, factions, and the whole universe in greater detail than ever before. The line will primarily be released in PDF via e23.

Paul Levitz: DC Comics and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative

Indicia fans will have noticed a new symbol popping up in the fine print of some DC comics in recent weeks, a green emblem proclaiming compliance with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. (Okay, I concede that it may be overstating things to call anyone an indicia fan, but we know some of our readers pay attention to every aspect of our publications.) It’s a good thing, and a useful example of how one person’s focus on an issue can move a large company.

Alison Gill, DC’s Vice President-Manufacturing, is a woman of strong passions: her love of comics led her from the tiny London offices of Marvel U.K. in the 1980s to running production for Marvel Comics in New York, and then uptown to our digs almost a decade ago. Along the way she had to relegate her passion for soccer and find an American sport that could give her a comparable outlet. It’s only a rumor that she personally ripped the seats out of the Montreal Canadians arena that now decorate her office, but however they got there, it’s evidence of serious hockey fandom. She picked up a husband from her Marvel service (like so many of us who found our spouses at the office), and a pack of friends who gathered recently to toast her birthday in the Village. As our manufacturing has grown steadily more complex, with increasingly varied print formats, more rapid turnaround requirements to keep titles in print, overseas plants put to work on DC Direct and some hardcover titles, and rapid cost escalation of raw materials, she’s had plenty to do. But Alison can always find time to talk about paper.

In the past year, she’s had major victories in improving the karma of our company. After years of investigation, negotiation and experimentation, she was able to switch a number of our kids’ titles to a recycled newsprint paper stock, made from 85% post consumer waste and most of the Vertigo line to a recycled hibrite paper that is made from 40% post-consumer waste. And now, she’s in the process of getting our titles to conform to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, a program that ensures that participating forest harvesters, paper manufacturers, printers and publishers are using paper which comes from forests that are being managed in a sustainable way -that is, harvested and replanted in a way that ensures they will be there for the future, without damage to the forest’s ecological balance (at least as best it’s currently understood). While many people at DC and our parent companies are committed to environmental issues, this progress is largely Alison’s own. She reacted to concerns raised by environmental activists, did the homework, and found the way to move DC to a better standard of behavior. We still have a long way to go, but she’s working on it…