ComicsAlliance Week in Review: April 6-13

This week we had a couple of interesting interviews having to do with the popular Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon series. First, Chris Sims spoke with Gene Luen Yang, the American Born Chinese cartoonist who is scripting a series of Avatar graphic novels, and then Caleb Goellner spoke with the show's creators about its sequel series, The Legend of Korra.

We also had all of the following...

Publishing:

-DC Comics is publishing a Masters of the Universe miniseries by James Robinson, Phillip Tan and Ruy Jose

-DC announced plans to revive National Comics, as a sort of 1st Issue Special series to spotlight different, under-used characters in done-in-one stories by rotating creative teams

-Ultimate Spider-Mand Miles Morales and regular Spider-Man Peter Parker will indeed meet in the upcoming Spider-Men event/story by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the debut of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's character

-Dark Horse will be publishing a comic based on Japan's "national legend" of the 47 samurai, drawn by Usagi Yojimbo artist Stan Sakai (and speaking of Sakai, David Brothers has an appreciation of Sakai's lettering in his signature sereis)

-IDW will be producing a Battle Beasts comic, based on one of the few remaining toylines that I played with a child that haven't had comic book adaptions just yet

-DC apparently liked how their recent flirtation with digital-first distribution went, as they'll be expanding the strategy to include a new Batman weekly and the new Ame-Comi Girls, based on the scantily glad, manga-style statuettes based on DC characters, which would make it a comic based on merchandise based on comics. Both will feature the work of rotating creative teams of fairly high caliber.

Reviews:

-Sims on "Don't Call Me Superboy," from DC Super-Stars Giant #12

-Lauren Davis on Three Word Phrase

-Sims on Danger Club #1

Previews:

-Saga #2 (I really like that seahorse guy)

-Alabaster Wolves #1

-Michael DeForge's "Bacon Fields" story from Adventure Time #3

-The Shade #7

-The Sixth Gun #21

-The Comic Book History of Comics, the title which has been given to the upcoming collection of Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey's Comic Book Comics miniseries

-America's Got Powers, the latest in a line of reality TV-inspired super-comics

Film:

-Sims and David Uzumeri continue watching Superman II

-Ben Kingsley is in talks to play a villain in Iron Man 3. Fingers crossed it's MODOK!

-Here are some excerpts from a talk given by Morgan Spurlock, the director of Comic-Con doc Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope

-Here are some clips from The Avengers

-Entertainment Weekly's summer preview included images from this summer's hotly-anticipated The Dark Knight Rises

-Archie's Sabrina the Teenage Witch is going to be getting another live-action adaptation, this time in a superhero-inspired film

-Voice actor-focused documentary I Know That Voice is slated for a 2013 release

-Details emerge regarding Sin City 2, which is now going to be called Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Television:

-Thief of Thieves, that new Robert Kirkman comic that looked like the pitch for a TV series, is being developed as a TV series

Legal:

-A legal conflict involving Superman? Preposterous! This time, it's Smallville's producers accusing Warner Bros. of using DC Comics to hide profits from the ten-season drama

-Frank Miller oughta love this

-Lauren Davis examines Map of The Dead, the Google Maps of (hopefully just) fantasy zombie survival

Art:

-Scott Balmer draws Ghostbusters, Conan and plenty of other cool stuff

-Kassandra Heller's draws Sailor Moon, and lots of other folks

-Character designer Thomas Perkins looks in the far corners of Marvel's character catalog for candidates to co-star in images featuring the main cast from the cartoon The Avengers: World's Mightiest Heroes

-N.C. Winters turns the likes of Boba Fett, Ramona Flowers and The Gremlins into religious iconography

-This week's Best Art Ever (This Week)