A few quick links

DC Women Kicking Ass creates a timeline of the new Batwoman title's long, long, long road to actually coming out. If I were putting the timeline together myself, I would have started on the day The New York Times announced Batwoman's creation in May of 2006 instead of when a certain rumor site started spreading rumors about it, but maybe that's just me being old-fashioned regarding the validity of unsourced industry gossip...particularly from such a credulous source. Anyway, good on DCWKA for putting it together.

Up top of the post is Alex Ross' design for Batwoman's costume, which was basically cobbled together from pre-existing Bat-costumes (Batgirl Barbara Gordon's basic design, the original Batwoman's head-piece, Batman Beyond's color scheme), resulting in something that looks both new and classic at the same time.

It's soooooo much better than the new Batgirl costume, and I remain perplexed by DC's decision to have Lee redesign their universe's various wardrobe's instead of Ross.

Sorry to keep complaining about the New DC's costuming; I'll get over it someday. Maybe in a year or three.


This story was of interest f me mainly for a number involved: Famous pretend-crazy Glenn Beck's new subscriber-only TV show thingee has 230,000 subscribers. I guess Keith Olbermann was making fun of it for being a low number, even though it's more than the people who watch his dumb show, but whatever, just look at that number, and then compare it to sales for Justice League #1 (so far) and pretty much every comic book of the last few years.

It's a pretty stark reminder just how niche a field comic book publishing really is. The very best-selling serial comic books form the biggest publishers, with the full weight of an unprecedented PR campaign behind them, are lucky to match the number of sad, poor, crazy people willing to plunk down money to spend time with a sad, rich, crazy person make them feel worse about themselves and the world they live in.


So apparently DC's short, fat, middle-aged characterAmanda Waller is now no longer at least two of those things in the company's re-booted universe. One could excuse the move by noting that the movie and television versions of Amanda Waller (played by Angela Bassett in Green Lantern and Pam Grier in Smallville) were taller, slimmer and sexier than the comic book version, but that doesn't really answer the question, just shifts responsibility for the change—why did the film and television producers so radically change the character?

Waller was formerly known as The Wall, a play on her name that also reflected her personality and her visual appearance, but now I wonder what they will call her. Perhaps The Post...?

(The above image is a detail from Karl Kesel's cover for 1989's Suicide Squad #34, in which Amanda Waller, left, battles Granny Goodness, right...say, I wonder how hot they'll make Granny Goodness look in the new DCU...? )

I do like that drawing of the new slimmer, buxom, hollow-cheeked (Or perhaps she just has a very defined facial structure; depends on how un-generous wants to be in characterizing the new look) Waller. A lot of what I had first heard about the book, including writer Adam Glass's thin, mostly dire resume and the random changes like King Shark becoming a half-hammerhead shark , turned me off on trying out the new book. But I liked the original concept and the original series, and if the art's decent, maybe it's worth a shot...?

Then I read the first paragraph of Don MacPherson's review of the first issue, and yikes. This is probably the ideal place for the publishers ugliest, darkest material, especially if it's going to carry on Secret Six's nasty-villains-battling-even-nastier-villains conceit, but it's not something I feel like wallowing in. Suicide Squad fan and Comics Alliance contributor Chris Sims was even harder on the issue than MacPherson was, and then the rest of the CA staff gave it a critical beatdown. With a 0.5 out of 10, I do believe it was the lowest rated of all of DC's "New 52" so far.


Johnny Ryan on Chester Brown's Paying For It in Vice. Sort of. NSFW, obviously, but you knew that when I said "Johnny Ryan," didn't you?


I love this dude's costume. And those bats in the first panel. And the panel above. Pretty great comic all around, actually.


When I first saw the headline "Some new Wonder Woman concept art by Cliff Chiang" at The Beat and glanced the image that Heidi MacDonald ran under it, I thought (for a split second) that maybe DC had toyed with redesigning Wonder Woman into a centaur as part of their reboot.


Comics Alliance recruited artist Carolyn Main to review a trio of "New 52" books, and she's a very funny, very astute critic. I liked her characterization of Animal Man as "Tarzan of the hipsters," and her synopsis of Hawk and Dove's basic story: " Bird People are kind of air marshals sometimes, and have many emotional problems concerning their brothers and or lady birds." (The above image is detail from a NSFW one-panel gag on Main's website, which is chockfull of awesome art...much of it NSFW).