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DC is planning on bringing back some Elseworlds titles in late 2007. DCâ??s intent is to avoid saturating the market with dozens of these titles, like they did in the past, and work to make them a special event produced by high profile creative teams.

At least two one shots are in production at DC right now. On a side note, my source at DC also says that John Byrneâ??s Generations 4 â?? a Batman / Superman Elseworlds series of mini series set in â??real timeâ? â?? has become an office joke at DC. Byrne has pitched it at least once a year for the last few years and has gotten rejected at every turn. Staffers expect Byrne to give it a go again, but at this stage no one at DC wants to see another instalment of this series or pretty much anything else that features John Byrne as a writer.

Link: http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/rage/116336584813633.htm" target="_blank">http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/rage/116336584813633.htm

I noticed a number of folks calling him on it and I suspect it is his Achille's Heel and he doesn't have much come back on that one as he doesn't have a foot to stand on.

I will probably never be able to show my face around here again but I do find myself agreeing with some of his points like his post on the first page (03 November 2006 at 10:34am):

"Wouldn't it be interesting if Batman did this (completely odd and out of character thing)"

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That's precisely the fanzine mentality I have been referring to lately. The approach to writing these stories, especially superhero stories, has always begun with "Wouldn't it be interesting ifâ?¦' That's pretty much the whole point, in fact. But what seems to have slipped away in recent years, as the thinking has become more fan-like and less, yes, professional, is the important second part of that question -- the part where somebody says "Yes, it would be interesting -- but where would we go from there?" So you can rip out Spider-Man's eye and put him in spider-armor and have him reveal his identity to the world -------- but where do you go from there?

Short-term thinking has become the rule.

I expressed similar concerns over on 2000 AD Review about Millar's run on The Authority especially "The Nativity." Good enough story in its own right, great advert for Millar (which paid off in spades) and pretty much scuppered The Authority - where do you go once you've shown that individual members of The Authority can beat all the other big superhero teams?

I'll go to confession tomorrow and ask for absolution.

Onbviously there is also a lot of cobblers being talked too ;)

An interesting article on Byrne by Erik Larsen.

Link: http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=20" target="_blank">Larsen on Byrne

Dino: "I can't believe it's not buccaneer"

Bolt:

This has been said before, but what would it cost to put together something like Urban dead?

While it'd require quite a bit of aplanning (but surely thats the fun part?), the main hassle is getting the server space and bandwidth sorted - that seemed to be the main pain for Kevan with UD as it provided massively popular.

The actual engine is free to use - he asked nicely and someone else let him use theirs (some vampire game). The developments from UD have been incorporated into Shartak (pirates ahoy):

http://www.shartak.com

Nexus Wars is another spin off set up by UD players and has exactly the kind of engine you'd need for something like a Judge Dredd MMORPG as you pick classes as you move up a tier (so you could go citizen >> Cadet >> Judge say) and then form factions, change morality and buy skills appropriate to your class). So in theory you could be in the Northern Mega City police deprtment as a good street judge or you could be an evil East Meg spy. Or you could be a Criminal (or next level up Gangster) down by the docks in a crime syndicate fighting with another one for control of the sugar trade. How about throwing in Cursed Earth mutants outside the walls? Theya re currently expanding the map so if it took off you could throw in the Black Atlantic (pirates?) and Brit Cit, etc.

Anyone interested should drop Jorm a line - they are friendly and approachable (even if I'd have to kill them on sight in the game ;) ).

Link: http://www.nexuswar.com

Can I presume that with a namecheck I can include these comments in the notes?

Help yourself to whatever I said which you think is useful.

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Other thoughts:

Doctor Hedren? There aren't that many famous Hedrens - Tippi "The Birds" Hedren being the most famous. Although the reference might be more obscure than that.

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Page 8

Panel 5

The whole business about book burning also recalls Fahrenheit 451 in which the hero is a fireman sent to burn books but comes to love and appreciate them.

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Pages 10-11

I'm unsure if the mushrooms are Fly Agaric (which have distinctive white dots on them and are very similar to other fungus like Death Cap mushrooms - the key factor in differentiating them is their stickiness, hence the Fly part) or Liberty Cap (it has a much taller top like a pixies hat). Most of them look unidentifiable, some on the extreme left look like spores and by the tree on the right is one which looks like a puffball. In the left by the lakeside and in the second panel there is a more spherical one with a texture very much like a Morel mushroom which is quite distinctive (although the shape is wrong). It might be that specific types aren't really referenced but there are some good guides to mushrooms you could dig out at the library if you wanted to check.

The connection is interesting though, especially as panel 1 page 9 refers to "mycoviruses" - myco being from the Greek word "mykes" meaning "fungus" (hence mycology - the stupid of fungi).

A few other points/thoughts:

The komodo dragon is a type of monitor lizard - not sure if that was intentional but...

Leatherjacket - I had always gone with the insect interpretation. There are also insect themes running through the story and he starts off in armour and as he transforms he sheds it, paralleling the metamorphosis of the crane fly itself. Obviously one  interpretation doesn't rule out the other and it may be both are hinted at.

Now I'm going to have to read through it again ;)

Really impressive - keep up the good work :)

There is a better article over at the NY Times (with a slideshow of the Great Ten):

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/arts/28gustines.

I agree about Stormwatch and Volume 1 - once you get used to the decompression (well someone was going to mention it) and get over the nagging thoughts that in 2000AD they could have delivered a great tightly scripted story in the pages it takes for anything much to happen. ;)

I haven't yet got around to the others yet though (Volumes 2 and 3, Kev and the one shots - although I keep meaning to pick up the one shot drawn by Frazer Irving) - any recommendations on which to go for and which to avoid?

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authority" target="_blank">The Authroity wikipedia entry

And you can also find us at MySpace - as things heat up for issue #4 I'm sure we'll fire off a few bulletins there for folks not on the mailing list.

Link: http://www.myspace.com/endisnigh

Definitely check out FQ - you can grab the first 3 from their site as PDFs (for free!!) to get you into the swing of things.

Link: http://www.futurequake.co.uk/" target="_blank">FutureQuake publishing

For those with the mag the extra content feature is now up and running - just go to TEIN site and type the special number in the box on the left.

More content will be added and it'll be flagged so you can spot the extra goodies (I think the only extra is alternate art for a strip in issue #2).

Link: http://www.endisnigh.co.uk/" target="_blank">End is Nigh site

I'm sure it worked fine (LMS will be able to tell you if your roder has gone through).

In other news the site has now been updated so you can now order issue #3 online:

Link: http://www.endisnigh.co.uk/" target="_blank">The End is Nigh site