Ben Templesmith

Comics are too expensive, and run for too long, and are basically evil super operas that cost a dollar for every half second we read them. You can't miss an issue, or else you're out of the loop for it all, but that also means that almost nothing happens in each comic, so you might as well wait for the graphic novel collection, but oh wait, if you do that it increases the odds of the comic being cancelled! Comics are great, but also completely broken. That's where Fell should have come in.

Created by Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff, Poison Ivy first graced the comic page back in the historic year of 1966, when The Sound of Music won Best Picture and England somehow won the World Cup. Her first appearance was in Detective Comics #181, and since then the character has remained a constant thorn in the Dark Knight's side.

On November 26th, DC releases the first issue of Gotham By Midnight, a new series by Ray Fawkes and Ben Templesmith that blends black magic and police procedurals, and exposes the supernatural shenanigans that go on below the surface of Batman's hometown. Along with recent successes Gotham Academy, Arkham Manor, and the newly-revamped Batgirl, the book is part of a substantial overhaul and expansion of DC's Bat-family of titles under editor Mark Doyle. ComicsAlliance sat down with writer Ray Fawkes to get some insight on what he and Templesmith have planned for Detective Jim Corrigan -- who longtime DC fans know is the original host of the vengeance of God, the Spectre -- and his shadowy squad of GCPD operatives.

It's safe to say that former Vertigo editor Mark Doyle has been blowing our minds since he took over as editor of DC's Batman line, launching and relaunching titles like Batgirl, Grayson, and Gotham Academy that feel exciting, entertaining, and refreshingly different from DC's "house style." Now add another title to the pull-list; the horror series Gotham By Midnight, by Ray Fawkes and Ben Templesmith. Gotham By Midnight tells the story of the Gotham City Police Department's horror beat, the "midnight shift" that deals with monsters, ghosts, and a creepier class of creep. The book is headlined by a familiar name from the Bat-universe, Detective Jim Corrigan -- who happens to be host to the vengeful divine force The Spectre. It sounds like Gotham By Midnight has the potential to be a very left-of-center Gotham Central.

Tuesday marked the second annual Image Expo, the banner event where Image Comics announces its slate of upcoming projects for the year to come. Last year's expo featured announcements of a slew of new comics; this year's had a similar abundance of news, so much of it from established Marvel creators that comics creator Phil Hester took it upon himself to (probably jokingly) announce via Twitter that Marvel's creator-owned imprint Icon "is done."

Where some conventions skew more toward pop culture than comic books, this past weekend's Emerald City Comicon 2013 stocked Seattle with hundreds of prominent creators from every corner of the medium. ComicsAlliance was on hand to catch the faces behind the funnybooks as they met fans, signed comics and worked on commissions...

It's a collision of pop culture icons as Wil Wheaton narrates the Ben Templesmith-illustrated book trailer for prolific comics writer Warren Ellis' new prose novel, Gun Machine. All we need to round things out is an appearance by Felicia Day and some level of Joss Whedon involvement to get the whole set, I think...

If you were not previously aware, geek fashion haus Threadless has a line called Comics-On Tees which depicts a comic book story across a series of t-shirts, usually drawn by a different artist for each shirt and from a story by a single writer...

Following test runs with its Batman Beyond Unlimited, Superman Beyond, Justice League Beyond and Batman: Arkham Unhinged titles, DC Comics has emboldened its digital-first distribution initiative to sell original content five days a week via its Web store and mobile apps...

Ben Templesmith is one of the most idiosyncratic artists in mainstream comics, with pages whose figures and settings often seem much more dreamlike (or nightmarish, as the case may be) than anything like the harsh realism strived for by many of his peers...