That’s right, True Beleivers! Never since the team up of Spider-man and the cast of SNL has a blatant marketing scheme been brilliant comic genius. Stephen Colbert of the popular Colbert Report will be swinging with Spidey in Amazing Spider-man #573.

For awhile Marvel has stated Colbert was a candidate for the presidency in the Marvel Universe, but besides some background Easter eggs this was not anything major. Hopefully now we’ll see Colbert in a more prominent role in Marvel.

Mark Waid, one of the issue’s writers and comics legend, spoke to me about the project:

“It was a blast to write–the best note I ever got on a script was from the Colbert camp, who said simply “We’re having a nerd-gasm!” and asked for zero changes! So, apparently, if you love Colbert as much as I do, we nailed it!”

Pick up this title if you love America!

It’s not a goof or a hoax! If you buy recently released 10th Edition “Start Here” packs, which include 2 10th Edition booster packs, 20 basic lands, and a foil rare (around $10), then you may get some lands from Shards of Alara.

I just bought this set for the heck of it, and ended up with some random lands from Shards of Alara. The expansion comes out in two weeks, but if you want some mad props from your 733t friends, buying this starter set is not a Shard decision.

Tonight at midnight players can create characters and begin playing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the newest MMORPG, a fantasy multiplayer game in the vein of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. This game looks very cool visually and many gamers are planning to start playing or switch from WoW.

But Warhammer poses some marketing problems. The first is about the world of the game itself. Warhammer is a collectible game played on tables with figurines produced by Games Workshop. The world is generic fantasy with heavy Tolkien influences. Maybe more darker than most fantasy worlds, but it’s traditional fantasy at its core. The same can be said of Warcraft, Magic: The Gathering and many fantasy properties. The reason these properties can coexist is due to their different mediums. Warcraft has always been video games, Warhammer as tabletop games, Magic as a card game, and so forth. But these properties are essentially the same sort of world, only riffed slightly for copyright issues. Warhammer is fresh and unique because it’s a tabletop game, not because its story is so badass it transcends mediums. There is a reason WoW shouldn’t have been made a card game, and why Magic’s video games never really caught on. To each his own.

But the biggest drawback to Warhammer is its presentation. Yes, if you are a PC gamer with all the right cards and hardware you can play the game. Everyone else is out. Warcraft can be played on PC or Mac, and while lower graphics, playable on most recent computers, including my 5-year-old iBook, which is saying something. Blizzard has the right attitude towards this sort of gaming, trying to get a multitude of customers. Maybe Warhammer will be this way, but so far all that game has done is alienate me from playing with its hardware restrictions and unimaginative premise.

Now, Warhammer 40K would be an amazing game…

The Walrus to Blizzard’s
Carpenter - we are the oysters

Hey there my fellow Guildsmen and women. Finally the second expansion for World of Warcraft’s release date has been revealed - 11.13.08.

This expansion features a new continent, a higher max level, and the much anticipated Death Knight class. I’ve leveled up quite a bit since I began playing a few weeks ago, but I’m still nowhere near Death Knight level (55), so it will be awhile until I personally am able to reap the benefits from the game, but I’m excited that this expansion will bring players back tot heir accounts.

This is also good because Warhammer Online is going to grab some of the WoW gamers, but with Lich King, hopefully they won’t grab too many.

image copyright Blizzard Entertainment

Marvel’s big secret has been unveiled - I think. The black-and-white image I previously posted will deal with Marvel’s upcoming Dark Reign branding stories. Basically, titles will have “Dark Reign” printed on the cover and they will deal with this new phase of the Marvel Universe.

Personally, this isn’t as exciting an announcement as I thought it’d be. We don’t really know what Dark Reign is, and the other two mysterious ads in comics recently were not linked to this event. I think the biggest news was Bendis’ stating he’s finished with Mighty Avengers after issue 20.

Regardless, I hope Dark Reign or whatever the conclusion of Secret Invasion is called will bring some slower pace to the Marvel Universe and allow stories to be told for awhile without being hijacked for crossovers.

For the past few months Marvel has been running black and white ads of mysterious characters holding guns in several of their titles. There are no words or indication as to what this campaign is marketing, and the internet has been begging for answers. However, tonight we may find out what’s going on.

Marvel released a press release and image today:

“What is this mysterious image? Learn the answers to this and many more exciting 2009 plans as Marvel makes their jaw-dropping presentation at the Diamond Retailer Summit tonight. And check Tuesday for in-depth interviews on all of the major announcements being made!”

So far there have been little actual hints as to what this project might be, or who the characters involved are. I could be these are new characters, or new interpretations of old characters. The ads give a noir feel to this mystery, so it’s possible we are looking at a super human crime thriller? Your guess is as good as mine, at least until tonight.

Magic: The Gathering has posted a few cards from their upcoming set, Shards of Alara, on their website.

These cards show new planeswalkers (including a multicolor one), the new mythic rare card type, artifacts that cost colored mana to play, and generally sweet cards that will redefine the game. Tri-color drafts will be a must, it appears, and minimages will most likely be a really fast, powerful game.

Keep reading as I plan to cover Magic more in depth, including interviews, deck ideas, and card news.

used with permission

For those of you who are connoisseurs of the Daily Illini’s comics strips, Dragon & Goat is no stranger to you. Written by Adam Fotos, Dragon & Goat is one of the papers longest running strips, and funniest (at least, funnier than mine).

Adam announced this weekend that his newest anthology of Dragon & Goat is available on lulu.com, the published-on-demand website where his other works are available. And the added bonus for these books is that Fotos has colorized his strips, no longer shackling them to a gray-scale newspaper existence. Defiantly spend the measly few dollars to get a copy of these guys’ antics. It’s well worth it!

courtesy DC

While many of you know about Alan Moore’s V For Vendetta and Watchmen, no one outside of comics will have heard of Moore’s sub-imprint of DC’s Wildstorm imprint, America’s Best Comics.

These stories are the best comics have to offer. What Moore did was instead of write a single title, he wrote a dozen series all part of the same universe. With each title, he could use different artists to tell different stores. Tom Strong was a campy Superman/Doc Savage pulp hero, while Promethea was a dark fantasy exploration of Moore’s religious philosophy. Each title had a different theme, but the characters shared a central universe.

America Best Comics’ was Moore’s attempt at saving comics. He gave different writers and artists the chance to play in a unique toy box of characters that homaged the wonderfully stupid legacy of comics. But, all of the series were eventually canceled, and ABC was left on hiatus.

Hopefully, with this trade paperback that reprints all the title’s first issues and the announcement of a Top Ten (the super hero police title) sequel, ABC may be back on the rise. If sales and interest justify it, these brilliant series may soon return.

Plus, this book is only $5.

It’s a new semester which means new classes, new books and new friends. Most importantly, it means new comic strips! I’m fortunate enough to have a new strip and a new artist, the fabulous Sara Jahn.

illus. Sara Jahn

Capes & Cowls is proud to announce Hot & Cold, the next generation of free college newspaper humor! Hot, a demon from Hell, and Cold, a penguin from the ever-melting Arctic, star in this neverending romp of tomfoolery. They go to the U of I for some reason, and are pretty much Cape & Cowl, only they are a demon and penguin, not super heroes. Yay for creativity!

I figured these first two issues of the DI needed to address the transition from Cape & Cowl to Hot & Cold, so I unartistically axed Cape. It was funsies.

Tune back every week for the complete run of Hot & Cold for those five days!

Hot & Cold © Matt Knicl 2008