Angel of the Mourning

Cool project announced at San Diego Comic Con yesterday: Ed Brubaker's Angel of Death, which will be live-action web series kicking off in summer 2009. Zoe Bell (of Death Proof fame) stars as a female assassin who has a head injury, then turns the tables on her various employers. Best of all, it'll be available free, online, in 8 to 10 minute (and presumably gore-soaked) bursts. Can. Not. Wait.

Criminal: A Wolf Among Wolves

The latest installment of my favorite comic, Ed Brubaker's Criminal, hits shops today. Sitting on the fence about it, for some bizarre reason? Check out the 10-page preview Ed shared over at Warren Ellis's Whitechapel site. (Scroll down a bit for those pages.) Then stick around as Ed does the Q&A thing, and discusses his influences, crime novels, and the horrors of a low-salt diet.

Iron, Like a Lion, in Zion

Some cool news that I've been sitting on for... oh, quite a few months now: I'm going to be taking over The Immortal Iron Fist starting this July. For a kid who grew up on Saturday afternoon Kung Fu flicks, and used to jump around in his underwear, thinking he was Caine, to the tune of Carl Douglas's "Kung Fu Fighting," it's a dream gig. Leaving the book are mad geniuses Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, who have spent 16 (plus) issues building the coolest, freakiest, Kung Fu/action/pulp/adventure ever, and I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be stepping into Danny Rand's yellow Ninja boots. The new artist is Travel Foreman, and you can see a sample of his work (from our first issue) at left. If you don't think this looks cool, ask someone to check your pulse.

A bunch of interviews popped up today at various comics sites, if you want to hear more from myself, Brubaker, Fraction and Iron Fist editor Warren Simons.

Comic Book Resources (Dave Richards)
Newsarama (Steve Ekstrom)
Comics Bulletin (Dave Wallace)

Update: Now there's a story from Tim Stevens up at Marvel.com, too.

Two Reasons to Hit a Comic Shop Today

1. Chances are, your local comic shop is giving away a sweet little bit of Marvel swag: an April calendar featuring the big "Secret Invasion" event. But on the back (or the front, depending on how it's folded) is a March calendar featuring Cable. I grabbed a bunch yesterday, and forced my kids to hang one in their room. Hey, promotion knows no bounds. And if the big mutant with the glowing eye gives them nightmares... well, that's just part of the joy of childhood. (Remind to tell you sometime about the evil clown my father painted on my bedroom wall... one with real seatbelts for arms, that came out of the freakin' wall...)

2. Ed Brubaker's Criminal Vol. 2 #1 hit the racks yesterday. If you're a fan of Hard Case Crime and Gold Medal paperbacks and Cain and Thompson and Goodis and the gang, you can't afford to miss this hardboiled pulp noir comic. And if you're a newbie, this issue is the perfect place to dive in: "Second Chance in Hell" is a self-contained story, packed with more pages than the usual Criminal installment. I'm also proud to report that my short essay about David Goodis, "Knock Me Over," is included in the back, along with an amazing Sean Phillips illustration. This essay won't appear anywhere else, and the extras aren't reprinted in the trades.

So to recap: walk into a comic shop with $3.50, and walk out with a cool poster, a killer noir story, and a little noir essay by your friendly neighborhood Pole. Tell me a better deal than that and I'll buy you a hot dog.

Superbadassery

Bill Hader, interviewing Ed Brubaker. What could go wrong?

Coolest revelation: Simon Pegg (who we all know is actually Allan Guthrie) turned Hader on to Criminal. Boy, what a small, small world.