comic book

Now that the world's collective pre-teen subconscious has been thoroughly distracted by vampires with glittering skin or charming Southern accents, AMC is sneakily bringing back some zombie love. According to Variety, the comic series created by writer Robert Kirkman and illustrator Tony Moore, The Walking Dead, is coming to AMC. Bonus: Frank Darabont will be writing and directing.

It's about time! Let's give the blood suckers a break and revisit some good ol' brain eaters, shall we?

G.I. Joe and Transformers climbed to their lofty perches atop Hollywood's food chain from their iconic beginnings on 80's television.

Now, IDW Publishing is helping to bridge the gap between those classic 80's shows and their 21st Century big screen adaptations with new series of digital comic books based on the adventures of Snake Eyes, The Baroness, Optimus Prime and Megatron.

Made especially for online devices like iPods and the iPhone, these digital comics should be a welcome site for hardcore fans of the original TV hits as they're not blown away by the CGI-driven movie adaptions. Yes, the animation of those after-school cartoons was about one frame every four minutes, but they had such purity and charm to their morality plays.

Outside of art school, I'm not sure how many people are really into both Project Runway and comic books. Marvel, however, seems determined to tap into that audience by including the ever-popular Tim Gunn in its upcoming mini-series, Models, Inc., which features some of the finest ladies in the Marvel Universe taking on the catwalk. I guess if you really think about it, it's not really straying too far from comics about chicks with Gunns.

Ha! Yes! I'm just gonna pat myself on the back for that one because I know no one else will.

Bill Hader and Seth Meyers (the latter of whom is the head writer for Saturday Night Live) will be writing Spider-Man ... the comic book, not the next movie. Their single-issue story is called "The Short Halloween" (which I presume is a parody of a Batman comic story called "The Long Halloween") and will be in finer comic book shops on May 13.

This isn't the first time a comedy writer has written a comic book. I recall Gilbert Gotfried helping out with an issue of Superboy and Patton Oswalt writing a one-shot Justice League special, among others. While I don't think this will get the same level of publicity as Barack Obama being on a Spider-Man cover, it's kind of cool to hear about. I wonder if Spider-Man will sing his own rendition of "Dick In A Box".

In short, comedians are huge nerds. But this is nothing you didn't know before.

[via ComicMix]

It's hard to deny the passion that fans of CBS's late apocalyptic drama Jericho had. Their "nuts" campaign prompted the network to reverse order and bring back the show after officially canceling it. That second season did provide some closure on many of the dangling plot threads, but some fans felt it didn't live up to the quality of the first. Whether this had to do with the reduced episode order or the reduced budget is uncertain, but none of that matters now.

Thanks to the ongoing dedication of those fans, Devil's Due Publishing has inked a deal with CBS Consumer Products to continue the story of Jericho in comic book format. Both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel have had amazing success publishing their new "seasons" in the comic book medium. More recently, Sci Fi's Farscape launched a comic continuation of its own, while many other properties are telling original tales in comics (Eureka, Supernatural and Fringe come to mind). But with Jericho being far less sci-fi/fantasy in its presentation, it'll be interesting to see if its fans follow it to this new medium.

I don't know about you, but when creator Bryan Fuller talked about concluding all the story threads from Pushing Daisies as a comic book, I was less than enthused. Now, however, I've got renewed hope.

No, ABC is not even mentioning bringing Daisies back. They're not even committing to broadcasting the last few episodes. But Kristin Chenoweth thinks Pushing Daisies might be a movie. That's right, the show could/would/should be wrapped up as a movie in her estimation.

Do not adjust your web browser. You are now entering the Retro Squad, where we are reviewing past episodes of classic TV shows.

Here is one of those questions that doesn't come up too much in normal conversation. Yet, it's one of those things that, once you think about it, does make you go 'hmmm'. It's about the Super Friends. Well, actually, the Superfriends. Or, is it the SuperFriends?

I've seen it written so many ways over the last 35 years(!) that it is a bit confusing. And, while it probably isn't the most earth-shattering question, it is something to take into consideration when you are writing a post about the Saturday morning show. Especially when there are fans of the show reading the post who are ready and willing to point out the mis-spelling in fine detail.

So, for the purposes of accuracy, I present the following evidence to you, the TV Squad readers, to help me determine the proper spelling.

Battlestar Galactica has one. So does Supernatural, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and Angel. Even the newest incarnation of Doctor Who has one as of January. What do these shows have, besides a huge fan following? They all have their own comic books which take place during the current run of the series or continue the story where shows ended their run. And now, NBC's action-comedy Chuck will be joining the ranks of the small screen in small print.

The Chuck comic book, which will be created by DC Comics imprint WildStorm, will follow Mr. Bartowski and his Nerd Herd and secret agent pals in a series of worldwide adventures that producers of the television show just don't have the budget for. Being a comic book you can probably expect some cliffhanger endings, bigger special effects, and Chuck to gain some mutant powers.

The comic book series will be available starting June 11th.

[via PopCandy]

(S08I12) I never really cared for the Dracula episode of Buffy. It definitely had its funny moments, but having Dracula thrown into the Buffyverse lore was hard to stomach. Not to mention this ass had an easy time of wooing Buffy. Oh, and Xander too.

That said, this was a great issue. It marks the first of a series of issues written by TV Buffy writer Drew Goddard, and the feeling from the show is captured perfectly. For some reason I wasn't able to say that as much before, but here I feel right at home.

Some of you may not know this already, but the latest issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8 comic hit stores last week, when originally it was slated to come out, I believe, this week. As I was picking up my copy, I got to wondering if the TV Squad readers even cared to have me continue to review them, especially with the news that there will be a season 9 comic.

So, once again I'm going to take advantage of the use of polls and leave it up to you. While I'm definitely going to keep buying and reading these books, do you want me to continue to review them here for you? I'll check the results of the poll (after the jump) later this week and decide.

We've mentioned a couple of times that an actual comic book was being developed based on the fictional Tek Jansen character created by the fictional Stephen Colbert, played by the real-life Stephen Colbert.

Tek Jansen is the hero of Colbert's science fiction novel, Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure. The comic series, created by Oni Press, will consist of five issues, with two stories in each issue (one of which is a continuing story stretching through all five issues). Entertainment Weekly has a look at the first "secondary" story, "Horn Like Me!" in which our hero disguises himself as a horn-headed Rombaron, a race of aliens who rule over the plain-headed Rombarons. The story, naturally, is a spoof of John Howard Griffin's book Black Like Me, though Jim Massey also points out the story owes a debt to The Sneetches, the Dr. Seuss story.

I've seen some odd cameos in comic books, TV shows, and movies, but this is one of the more odd ones.

Marvel has a new comic book out, Mythos: Spider-Man, which retells the origin story of the webslinger with several changes. One of the changes? After Peter Parker is bitten by the radioactive spider, he doesn't go try out his powers in a wrestling ring, he demonstrates them on NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien!

The show's blog has the details, along with several pics from the issue, which hits newsstands today. Next month: the Hulk's band plays on Letterman's show.

[via TV Tattle]

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today on TV Squad Daily:

• Dan Rather said the word "tart," and suddenly everybody's talking about the evening news.
  
• Donald Trump's has a new reality show in the works, Lady or a Tramp.
  
• Are we being punished? Veronica Mars fans won't get a new season, but they might get a comic book instead.
  

The video's embedded below, or you can subscribe to this podcast via our feed. Plus, you can also download the file directly.

Annie told you not long ago that Oni Press wanted to create a comic book series based on Stephen Colbert's Tek Jansen character. Well, it looks like it's actually going to happen. Indie Comics News has an audio interview with artist Scott Chantler about the upcoming five-issue series.

Chantler states that the comic series will be a little "less goofy" than the animated shorts featured on The Colbert Report, but it doesn't sound as if the comics will stray too far from the basic idea of Tek Jansen being an idiot in super hero clothing. In the first issue, Tek manages to turn a peaceful visit from aliens into an all out intergalactic war.

Chantler is a freelance commercial illustrator who's previously worked for such clients as McDonald's and Reebok.

[via CC Insider]

First, some background:

Harvey Pekar is best known for writing the comic book series American Splendor about life in his hometown of Cleavland, Ohio. Robert Crumb offered to illustrate Pekar's stories after the two men struck up a friendship.

Pekar became a minor celebrity (well, minor in the "mainstream" sense) and it afforded him a few appearances on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman. In one of the show's most memorable moments, Pekar had more than a few nasty things to say about General Electric, the company that owns NBC. The incident got him booted from the show for awhile, but eventually he was asked to come back.