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Axe Cop is one of the biggest success stories from the world of web comics. Who knew that a story told by a 5 year old and illustrated by his 29 year old brother would be so popular? If you are not familiar with Axe Cop, it is a comic series about a cop who uses a fireman’s axe to chop crime to pieces and often rides a tyrannosaurus rex. It is full of the randomness, plot twists, and robot moon battles that you would expect from the mind of a little boy. In other words, it is ridiculously entertaining. Fox agrees and decided that Axe Cop would make the perfect cartoon for Animation Domination HD, a new block of late night cartoons that is supposed to draw viewers away from Adult Swim on Cartoon Network.

Yeah, I think I’d watch this.

Neither Malachai Nicolle, the young writer, or Ethan Nicolle, the artist, aren’t Seth MacFarlane, so it is a little surprising that their work will be on Fox. I thought MacFarlane had some sort of monopoly on animated airtime there. Either way, it will be interesting to see how the sudden twists and turns of Axe Cop will fit into animated airtime. I am especially curious to see how long episodes will be. I feel like 15 minute episodes in the vein of Aqua Teen Hunger Force would be the way to go if the Axe Cop television show stays as random as the comics. That kind of manic story jumping could grow wearisome if it went on for a full 30 minutes every episode, as those longer episodes usually require a bit more of a structured story element to keep the audience interested. Too much structure would rob Axe Cop of its unique charm, so Fox will definitely be walking a fine line with the development of this series.

I also wonder if Fox is scouting other web comics to turn into animated series. The popular web comic Least I Could Do has been working on putting together an animated series for quite a while now, and the adult humor in that strip would certainly fit a late night cartoon block. If I was to choose one web comic to become an ongoing television series, my vote would have to go to Anthony Clark’s Nedroid comics. 15 minute episodes of Beartato and Reginald being random and lovable would be the best thing ever. Basically a grown up Adventure Time without having to grow up.

Go read about Beartato if you like being happy.

Iron Man 3 is starting to develop a nice, well rounded cast of high quality actors. In addition to the awesome Guy Pearce and Ben Kinglsey, we have another pair of actors joining the latest adventure of Tony Stark.

Is there a redheaded cat fight in the future?

First up is Jessica Chastain. Although the actress only had a few minor roles in TV and movies until last year, in 2011 she broke out with a slew of movies and even received an Academy Award nomination for her role in The Help. Marvel has a habit of hiring hot new celebrities. Mickey Rourke, Jeremy Renner, and Mark Ruffalo were all hired after receiving Oscar nominations. Chastain is certainly a rising star who is a welcome addition to the cast. She’s also drop dead gorgeous, so we have that too. Chastain will play a scientist, which probably means Maya Hansen. Hansen had somewhat ambiguous loyalties, so it’s hard to say what she might do by the end of the movie.

 Yup, Andy Lau looks pretty awesome.

Next up is Andy Lau. He seems to be a successful actor in his native China and considering how much of the movie takes place in the country it’s good to see someone who’s actually of Chinese descent join the cast.  He looks like an ally to Tony Stark, someone who will help him take down the villain played by Ben Kingsley. Works for me.

Despite these new additions, we won’t see Scarlett Johansson return as the Black Widow. I actually like this. After appearing in the Avengers, the Black Widow will prove herself to be more than just a supporting character. The impression I seem to get is that Ben Kingsley is the villain in charge, while Guy Pearce emerges as the unhinged superpowered threat. Possibly after testing out Extremis on himself. Iron Man 3 will have to follow the Avengers, so the expectations will be high. Let’s hope it delivers.

Well it’s about damn time. Everyone’s favorite SHIELD agent will be hitting comics in the Battle Scars miniseries. Agent Coulson made his debut in the first Iron Man movie, and since then has been a big part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe ever since. Now Coulson becomes an official part of comic lore.

Agent Coulson and a guy who totally isn’t Samuel L. Jackson.

In actuality, we’ve already met the character in the miniseries. He’s Marcus Johnson’s wartime buddy nicknamed “Cheese”, and is an army ranger who’s been helping him through the events of Battle Scars.  As a big fan of the character, I’m excited. Writing him in comics might be tricky, since so much of what the guy cool is Clark Gregg’s awesome delivery. Hopefully he’ll be a solid edition to the newest incarnation of SHIELD.

On a separate note, that’s Marcus Johnson in the picture up there, looking an awful lot like Ultimate Nick Fury. Marcus seems like a cool character and all, but it feels a bit forced. Losing an eye was one thing, but shaving his head and getting a beard suddenly? It all feels really inorganic. That being said, I love how they gave him Steve Roger’s recent Super Soldier uniform.

I am getting to be an old man. An old man who misses out on awesome jokes spread around the internet. Just in case anybody else had a senior moment, or month as the case may be, here is some news from Skybound. They plan on releasing The Walking Dead: For Kids with kid friendly drawings by Chris Giarrusso. Skybound’s official statement was:

‘“THE WALKING DEAD: FOR KIDS is going to be word-for-word, panel-for-panel like the regular Walking Dead books, with all the violence, all the sex… but for kids!”

Giarrusso added: “It’ll be adorable.”’

Now kids can enjoy Maury Povich-like paternity conundrums and numerous gruesome deaths in the most adorable way imaginable! Except that this was of course an April Fool’s Day prank. Still, we did come away from this with some awesome Chris Giarrusso cover art, so I call it a win.

 I wish this was a real thing.

I would actually love to see some more work from Giarrusso. I miss his Mini Marvels series. It was that series that first introduced me to Hawkeye’s awesomeness, which I am very thankful for. While The Walking Dead: For Kids won’t be happening, there are plenty of other series for Giarrusso to make his own. What would you like to see him work on next?

Remember a few years ago, when Guy Ritchie was attached to make Lobo movie? After Ritchie went on to direct a sequel to Sherlock Holmes and everyone assumed the project was dead. It turns out that Warner Bros. and DC aren’t quite done with the alien mercenary yet and have brought in Brad Peyton to write and direct.  Peyton’s past credits include Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Journey 2.  Wowzers! 

Yup, seems like a good fit for this crazy bastich.

Back when Guy Ritchie was involved, I was actually excited for the movie. I’m not the biggest Lobo fan, but Ritchie has a unique style that would have been a neat fit for the character. But Brad Peyton? A resume featuring bad kiddie movies doesn’t really fill me with confidence for the excessively violent Lobo. Will Peyton try and take a stab at something darker, or is he being hired because he can deliver something a bit softer? At this point, we really can’t say.

Regardless of what Peyton tries, I have the feeling this movie won’t make much progress. It never seemed high on Warners to-do-list and unless Peyton can come in with a strong vision and script, I doubt they’ll take a big risk on the project. Warners seems somewhat apprehensive about venturing away from Batman and Superman after what happened with Green Lantern, almost as if all their other superhero projects have ground to a halt. Although if the Avengers does well, don’t be surprised if the Justice League suddenly gets put on the fast track.

With Iron Man 3 moving into production next month, it was only a matter of time before we heard more casting announcements. Today we get another, as Guy Pearce joins the cast as geneticist Aldrich Killian!

A 2-time Nobel Prize winner in the field of stubble studies.

Chances are you’ve never heard of the character. Dr. Killian had a small role in the Extremis storyline, but died early on. With an actor as talented as Guy Pearce, I would expect the character to get a significantly beefed up role. Reports do not explicitly say Pearce is playing a villain, and I expect the character to be something new from what we’ve seen in the comics. We can probably expect Pearce to share a good amount of screen time with Tony Stark, since both characters are scientists and might even have somewhat of a friendship. A fun contrast might with Stark’s tech vs. Killian’s genetics, and the two very different approaches to science.

My guess is that Kingsley plays the criminal mastermind trying to use the nanomachines as a weapon, while Guy Pearce’s character is the one actually developing them. Maybe he has noble intentions, maybe he doesn’t. Personally, I would love to see Pearce play a full fledged supervillain. Perhaps his character descends into villainy as a way of advancing a radical view of reshaping the world. Regardless, Pearce is an immensely cool actor who seems like a great addition to the cast.

The Avengers and X-Men both have enormous rosters, and over the years a few fan favorites have emerged. Hawkeye and Gambit are two of them. This August both characters will be breaking out in their own solo series.

Do a good job, Fraction. Please.

Hawkeye’s series will be written by Matt Fraction with art by David Aja.  When Fraction is at his best, he’s an exciting and smart writer. Look at his work on Immortal Iron Fist, early issues of Invincible Iron Man and Casanova for proof. His current stuff though? Inconsistent. Defenders has been meh, Iron Man is kind of floundering, and Fear Itself was a letdown. He can still produce an amazing issue here or there, but it almost seems as if the man is overworked. I’m somewhat doubtful, but with David Aja’s amazing art at least the book will look pretty. As a fan of Hawkeye, I’m nerd-bound to check it out. No has ever really pulled off a long term Hawkeye solo book, so hopefully Fraction can crack the code here. At the very least, we still get to see Barton as team leader on the Secret Avengers.

Everybody loves the guy with the accent.

James Asmus and Clay Mann (this dude is definitely a supervillain) will be taking on Gambit. I’ve never read anything by Asmus, although it’s cool to see Marvel give a neat project to an up and comer. I like the angle of letting him run a heist and returning to the character’s past as a thief. It definitely makes Gambit stand out from other superhero material. This book has a lot of unknowns, but certainly has potential. Gambit hasn’t been doing a whole lot on the X-books, so the timing couldn’t be better.

Out of the two, I have to say I’m more excited for the Gambit book. I love Hawkeye, but I’m skeptical of Fraction and already see the character plenty in Secret Avengers. Gambit is more of an unknown and as a fan of heist stories I can’t say I’m not interested.

So far, the New 52 hasn’t seen a big, company wide crossover.  Instead, the company is going for small mini-events, like the awesome Night of Owls storyline starting up in the Bat-books. Each corner of the DCU has its own big stories and crossovers, and most of these have been really exciting. However, noting has brought all these parts of the New 52 together. Bleeding Cool tells us that such a story is on its way. In 2013 DC will bring us the Trinity War.

DC will kill off everybody except Batman.

Of course, the first thing that pops to mind is DC’s trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Everything else in the story is up for grabs. Is it a battle between the three of them? Possible, although I have no idea how that would happen. Is it the three heroes fighting against something monstrous? Maybe. This early on, there’s only so much speculation we can do.  We don’t even know for sure if this event exists yet.

Only three months stand between us and the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. I know, I’m giddy, too. I’ve always marveled at the scale in which Chris Nolan shoots his films, and specifically his Batman capers. In a recent interview, Nolan spoke on his use of an IMAX screen as the proper canvas for his upcoming film, and took the opportunity to bash 3D movies. Personally, I’ve always been slightly turned off by the gimmicky nature of 3D movies and felt it doesn’t add much to the movie going experience, so it is really refreshing to hear an all-star of the movie biz speak of the ills of movies-coming-right-out-at-you.

3D is best used for awesome theme parks, not movie theaters.

Nolan said that all films are 3D and that the “stereoscopic” nature of films takes away from the audience experience. He did say it was a good technology for video games and other immersive technology, but his use of 65mm film makes the new soon to be hit “operatic” and in fact reminds him of the pageantry of silent era films. It all seems to be funny way to look at what seems to be a very involved process of photography, and a difficult skill to master, but its wonderful to hear about how and why a director chooses to do what he does. Batman at his core is, after all, a detective who uses his ingenuity above all those gadgets to catch the bad guys. He defines the tech – not the other way around. For the best 3D experience known to man, check out the Spider-Man ride at Universal Studios.

Comic book fans are notorious collectors. I myself collect the comics themselves and tons of merchandise related to comic books. As I have stated before, the most rewarding part of collecting is the hunt, as you spend hours scouring websites, stores, and garage sales for that hard to find item. Out of all these options, garage sales are the most exciting because of their unpredictability. You could come up empty handed, and often will at these kinds of sales, but everyone has heard stories about the guy who found an action comics #1 for $5 at a garage sale, or picked up a rare action figure for pennies on the dollar. Now there is a website built around replicating this experience.

But without the smell of the elderly.

Yardsellr advertises itself as an online yard sale, and that is quite the accurate description. There is a ton of crap on this website, and a few shining gems to be found. There is a search function to help narrow down results, but the blocks feature on Yardsellr is pretty awesome as well. The blocks are basically categories, such as Action Figures, Comic Books, and Batman. From there you can scroll through pictures of various items people have put up for sale. I have seen everything from action figures missing various limbs to early issues of Detective Comics. The fun is in the search.

Still better spelling than most yard sales.

Perhaps the coolest feature about things on Yardsellr is the fact that anybody looking at the items can leave comments right there. There have been some long discussions on higher tier items, and they can in fact be quite useful at times. People discuss fair market prices, point out good deals, and often talk about the history of an item. It is also exceptionally easy to contact a seller with any questions and have the answers posted publicly for all to see. All in all, Yardsellr is a great resource for collectors on the search, whether they are looking for something specific or just browsing to see what catches their eye.