USA Today runs weekly Superman comic online

As a tie-in to it's great new weekly comics experiment, "Wednesday Comics," DC Comics has partnered with USA Today to feature its lead strip, Superman, as a weekly online installment. Start here to begin the story. As of this writing, they're up to week 3.

"Wednesday Comics," a 12-week series, pays homage to the Golden Age of the Sunday newspaper's comics section. It is a 16-page weekly that unfolds to a 28" x 20" tabloid-sized, full-color spread, with each strip on its own 14" x 20" page. Each week find new stories on traditional DC superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and the Teen Titans, classic characters such as Adam Strange, Kamandi and Sgt. Rock, and quirkier heroes like Deadman, Metamorpho, the Metal Men and the Demon (here teamed with Catwoman).

At $3.99 an issue, it's bit expensive for a weekly book and not every strip works, but it's a great experiment that spotlights lots of character and creators, and throws in a bit of nostalgia. It's too early to tell which stories will ultimately turn out the best, and no one knows if and how the stories will be collected, but between the weekly fold-out newsprint and the online weekly Superman strip, it's a great time to be fan of DC Comics and is wide universe of characters.

Read more about the concept behind "Wednesday Comics" here.

Shedding light on the Dark Knight

The Dark Knight opens in less than three weeks, and the full-court marketing press is on. Among the coolest promotions is from Comcast. For those with Comcast's digital cable, you can see trailers, mini documentaries, special "newscasts" and even one of the six animated segments from Batman: Gotham Knight, the animated DVD feature due out July 8, through On Demand (check "Movies & Special Events').

But even if you don't have digital cable, you can still see some of the Comcast goodies. Just go to the dedicated mini-site for some of the same documentaries and trailers.

Elsewhere are actor, writer and director interviews that help set the stage for the sequel. Most notably, you can read these interviews with star Christian Bale, co-star Aaron Eckhart, director Christoher Nolan and writers, David Goyer and Jonathan Nolan.

You can see five minutes from another segment of Batman: Gotham Knights here.

Finally, here's an early mainstream review (from Rolling Stone) that will make you just want July 18 to get here quicker!

Make your own online mix tape

There's a site called Mixwit.com, where you can make and share your own online mixtape. Here's my first attempt:

Rachel Dawes believes in Harvey Dent!

Rachel Dawes supports Harvey Dent. Do you?

The Harvey Dent for Gotham City district attorney campaign is heating up. I even saw a campaign sticker in Center City Philadelphia.



However, since the fear toxin incident, crime is up and Lt. James Gordon has been tapped to head Gotham's new Major Crimes Unit.

Isn't viral marketing fun?

R.E.M. Concert @ South by Southwest Festival

In advance of the release of their new album, Accelerate, due April 1, R.E.M played a 90-minute concert at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX on Wednesday night, April 12. Here's a review of the show.

NPR. org has put the entire concert online.

Awww, it's Little Batman!

Here's a link to a 3-part video on youtube that recasts the 60s Batman TV show with kids. It's very cute (once you get past a 2+ minute opening credits sequence, set to one of the greatest Batman collections you'll ever see).

Definitely worth taking a look.

Adam West IS The Dark Knight

Clips from the 1966 Batman movie set to the audio of the latest Dark Knight trailer. Fun stuff...

Marvel launches new online comics initiative

Today, Marvel Comics announced an expansive online comics initiative, designed to reach new fans by making an archive of more than 2,500 Marvel Comics available for viewing online for a nominal fee. Available comics range from the first appearances of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Iron Man to more recent endeavors, including the Ultimate universe and Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men.

This initiative, called Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, provides readers access to its growing online archive in a high-resolution format on computer screens for $59.88 a year, or at a monthly rate of $9.99. The comics, which can only be read online, are not downloadable.

From Marvel's press release:

The easy-to-navigate Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited site presents each digital comic in the highest-resolution ever available and offers innovative viewing options, user-friendly search and recommendation features, and personalized reading list tools. Accessible by both PC and MAC users directly through Marvel.com/digitalcomics as well as via the www.marvel.com homepage, Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited will have subscription rates as low as $4.99/month -- making it affordable to new readers and longtime fans.

So they don't cannibalize sales from comic shops, new comics will not be available online until six months after their release dates.

For more information, and for 250 free sampler issues, go to http://marvel.com/digitalcomics/hq/

Darth Vader is a bad Dad

Check out this public service announcement.

How well do you know Bond?

Take this Bond quiz by the BBC.

And for more 007 fun, check out trailers for every Bond film.