The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were probably the first childhood fad I ever really understood to exist. Before the Power Rangers, before Animorphs, and before POGs, I understood that TMNT was the coolest thing ever.

Now I know that if I ever want to look like Krang, it will be less expensive than looking like a Turtle, but more expensive than a half-shell backpack.

The Hero Initiative is a non-for-profit organization that works to help out established comic book creators who are down on their luck, as many in the industry have been at some time, due to the mercurial nature of in industry where royalties, character rights, and steady work-for-hire are in no way guaranteed.

Their latest fundraiser involves printing 50 blank-covered copies of Archie #600, the issue where he proposes to Veronica, asking 50 of the biggest artists in comics today to draw their own cover, and selling those issues on eBay. The originals, that is. The 50 new covers will also be collected in a published book, which will probably be a bit more affordable to the average comic reader.

The list of artists on the project include Neal Adams, Darwyn Cooke, John Romita, Tim Sale, and Cliff Chiang (above). We’ve put a few of the sample covers below the jump for you.

Boy, I can’t wait to see Tim Sale‘s.

Read on...

John Favreau has already dropped hints about what he’d like to do in Iron Man 3, but Black20 Studios is apparently impatient with the pace of things, and has developed their own trailer for Iron Man 4.  They have a certain vision in mind.

And it involves James Brown, The Ninja Turtles, President Obama, Johnny 5, and mini arc reactors for everyone!  But mostly Rocky Balboa.

Don’t question, just watch.

On Wednesday, online comics “library” HTMLcomics was shut down and had its servers confiscated by the FBI working in tandem with the U.S. Department of Justice and Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Bongo Comics, Archie Comics, Conan Properties Int’l LLC, Mirage Studios Inc., and United Media. Actually the press release simply states that the publishers involved in reporting the copyright infringement “include” the eight companies mentioned above.

As Robot 6 says:

It seems to be the first time that comics publishers have banded together like this to take down a site, rather than just sending out cease-and-desist notices, but it also may be unique. The owner of the site, Gregory Steven Hart, operated out in the open and made no attempt to conceal what he was doing; indeed, he seems to be convinced he was running a legal enterprise.

It’s been a long week, and we’d just like to remind you that the best day of the year is close at hand. In order to sear this information into your brain, we’re going to associate it with the most awesome thing we’ve seen all day, these absolutely fabulous Marvel superhero headphones and ear-buds.

They are all up for (single tear) pre-order at BigBadToyStore.com for fifteen bucks, and tomorrow, you will be able to obtain comic books for exactly fifteen dollars less than the cost of these headphones.

Edwin Jarvis is a nearly fifty year old Marvel Comics character, first created as Tony Stark‘s butler who eventually became caretaker to the Avengers Mansion, making him the “Alfred” (just so DC reader’s have something to latch on to) of the Marvel Universe’s biggest, most changeable superhero team.  Jarvis also appeared in the Iron Man movie, as the AI that ran Tony Stark’s house and gave him advice on the more mundane operations of the Iron Man suit.

But you don’t have to be a billionaire (or a Federation Captain) to talk to your apartment and have it obey you. Chad Barraford is doing it right now.

This weekend is Wondercon and of course announcements are rolling out to let us know what to expect from the world of comics, movies, and science fiction. The two that have caught our eye are not exactly what we would call reassuring.

DC Comics has announced that Frank Miller and Jim Lee are still dedicated to the long running “deadline challenged” series of All-Star Batman and Robin, and will be starting up a new series Dark Knight: Boy Wonder, to begin running in February 2011. They promise that these issues will ship on time. Without, you know, switching to a bi-monthly schedule halfway through. And then a five month delay on the last issue which ultimately has to be recalled.

Read on...