geekosystem

Not more than a month after comiXology faced criticism for preemptively removing a installment of the critically acclaimed series Saga from their iOS app to comply with Apple App Store policies, they've now rejected 56 other titles, including a few that were revisited and approved last month. To put it lightly, this bums us out real bad.

Here I was thinking that red carpet Hollywood premieres and the like were boring affairs for those watching from home. The one for Iron Man 3, which was yesterday, has suddenly turned that all around for me. See, in an interview with Yahoo! Movies, Joss Whedon dropped a huge hint about the possible appearance of a certain brother and sister in Avengers 2. Yeah, he's pretty much definitely referring to Wanda and Pietro Maximoff -- Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

Are you taking a break from conspicuous consumption following the traditional holiday purchase-palooza? If so, you are doing it wrong. That's because Fantagraphics comics is offering a 20% discount on everything in its catalog for the next couple of days. EVERYTHING. That's 20% off everyLove and Rockets collection, 20% off Johnny Ryan's newest Prison Pit book, 20% off the publisher's fantastic hardbound collections of Walt Kelly's genre-defining Pogo strips. At the risk of belaboring the point, there are things you simply need in a well-rounded comic book collection here, and for the next few days, they are all significantly cheaper. Keep reading for some of our picks of things you may want to add to our collection of classy comics while they're on the cheap side. If this seems like a shameless plug, it totally is, but it's a shameless plug for one of my favorite publishers, and one that is doing more to preserve the too-often overlooked history of the medium than anyone else today. I apologize for nothing.

Whether it's due to crippling mismanagement or labor strikes, the fact of the matter is that Hostess is winding down its operations. Their brands are for sale, which could mean we'll see Twinkies once again produced outside of Canada, but the company as it exists in the United States is going away. Back in the day, the company took out a series of hilarious advertisements within the pages of Marvel Comics, and we've collected our 11 favorite ads to pay our respects. Hit the jump to check them out.

Batman just can't catch a break. Not only does the comic book figure have real-life imitators, they seem to constantly be getting themselves in trouble. Mark Wayne Williams, dressed in a Batman outfit, was arrested this weekend after refusing to leave the scene of a crime. This is the second incident where Williams has been arrested in his Batman duds, so it might be time to hang up the cape.

A new series of super hero-themed LEGO sets based on recent and upcoming comic book films may have just confirmed, if not revealed, key plot points from Marvel's next movie, Iron Man 3, and Zach Snyder's upcoming take on Superman, Man of Steel. A list of upcoming LEGO sets, on track to come out in 2013, feature Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Superman. Though some of the sets clearly have no relationship their film counterparts, (there's a Batman-themed set called "Aquaman on Ice.") the Iron Man and Superman-themed sets match up with rumored details about Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel. For the record, the rest of this post may contain relatively detailed spoilers about Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel. Proceed at your own risk.

It turns out that reading comic books can be beneficial for the male psyche, making men perform better on tests of strength and even improving the body images of comic book fans. So take that, every guidance counselor, ever! A study conducted by researchers at the University of Buffalo found that, after seeing images of superheroes like Spider-Man and Batman, men performed better on a test of grip strength than they did without seeing the pictures.

Need some sweet, sweet Nolan North as Nathan Drake before Uncharted 3's launch on November 1? Aside from playing the first two Uncharted games again, the next best thing will be an official Uncharted novel, dubbed The Fourth Labyrinth, penned by Christopher Golden, who, judging from his website, has the uncanny ability to inhabit all benches at all times. Then, if both the novel and Uncharted 3 didn't satisfy that Nathan Drake drug, November 30 sees the release of a six-issue comic book published by DC Comics, written bu Joshua Williamson, who isn't as bench-oriented, with pencils by Sergio Sandovai. The comic series will take place before both Uncharted 2 and 3, and

...will find Nathan Drake discovering that the legendary Amber Room was hidden by another great explorer, Sir Richard Byrd, where legend has it that many, many years ago, Byrd hid the Amber Room in the fabled Agartha (a legendary city that is said to reside in the earth’s core, often referred to as “The Hollow Earth”).

Looks like another legendary city for Nathan. So, while we won't get Nolan North until November 1, we'll at least get some official Uncharted fiction.

When my father was in high school, my grandfather became convinced that comics were a communist plot, and so he burned all my dad's Ditko/Kirby/Lee era Spider-Man and Fantastic Fours. Sure, everybody has that story about parents throwing away their comics, but this one seems particularly relevant now that George Rigakos has written a graphic novel version of The Communist Manifesto, quite a few years too late for my grandfather to use in justifying his actions.

Marvel has announced that it will be killing off a member of the Fantastic Four in next month's issue, number 587, and that this time, they're not promising a comeback. In a story arc entitled "Fear Itself," the Fantastic Four - Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, and the Thing - have been placed in life-threatening situations, and executive editor Tom Brevoort says, "I think we've given plenty of hints as to who may die – perhaps too many."

We can't imagine a single aspect of our lives where we wouldn't want to follow the example set by Frank Castle. Scans_Daily has a roundup of great comic book based de/motivational posters, four more of our favorites after the jump.

As we know, geeks take their wedding invites quite seriously. (For instance: Fully playable 8-bit games?) Etsy seller swelser makes some wonderful, totally customized wedding invitations in the style of the pulp comics of yore, packed with the blurbs and dialogue bubbles of your choice. "I’ll make sure you look as though a cover was drawn by one of the top comic book artists from the 1960s to celebrate your big day. I don't just trace the photos, but rather come up with a comic style interpretation that should still be easily recognized as you."

Today, DC Comics allowed the New York Post to break some surprise news: as of this fall there will be two Batmans. If you can call it a surprise, since the covers of DC's November comics were released about two weeks ago and feature two different Batman costumes. Fan speculation was already off and speculating that this would mean that instead of Dick Grayson giving up the cowl when Bruce Wayne gets back, there might be some sort of timeshare agreement. So. Keeping up with Batman continuity is the reason I started buying monthly comics, and now it looks like it's going to be the reason I severely cut back on my monthly comics. I'm going to elaborate below, and I'm going to try to keep it down to a conversational level of nerdrage. I'm also going to try to keep from getting really depressed. So. Lets talk about continuity. (Yes, the plural of Batman is Batmans. Because it is a name. If you knew a family whose last name was Wolf you wouldn't call them the Wolves, would you?)

The Harvey Awards, the American comics industry's in-house awards show, was last night. For the second time, the MC was the internet's own Scott Kurtz, writer and artist behind PVP, occasionally known as the granddaddy of webcomics. There was even a bit of controversy, after Mark Waid's "impassioned speech about copyright and what its intent truly is" which contained a reminder to the comics industry to "not make the mistakes of the RIAA and the movie industry." According to Bleeding Cool,

Sergio Aragonés was later to counter Waid’s theme face-to-face which led to a rather loud contre temps between the two and a bit of a storm off on Waid’s part, with Aragones acclaiming that you don’t just give your work away.

Aragonés, if you're looking for a contextual touchstone, is a veteran of Mad Magazine and the creator of Groo the Wanderer, while Waid wrote The Flash for eight years, and was the writer behind Kingdom Come. But enough of that! See the award winners and their competition below:

Maryland State Senator Nancy King is running for reelection on a platform of education reform, and her ill-thought out direct mailer is slightly confusing for a moment, and then, once its meaning is fully grasped, starts raising the blood pressure of anyone who has ever worked in or enjoyed the fruits of sequential art. It implies, for the record, that if children don't have teachers to educate them, they will start reading comic books. The HORROR.