firehose

Following months in which the corporate bootlickers at HBO just sat on their hands, refusing to support the story that Jeff Daniels fearlessly broke, the network has at last issued a third and final season renewal for The Newsroom. HBO made the announcement today, after previously hedging on whether the show would return at all—a hesitance owing to Aaron Sorkin’s busy schedule and the general cravenness of the cable business, which only spoonfeeds the American masses the marshmallow fluff it thinks it can swallow, while the real truth-tellers are down here in the trenches digging for the real stories, in between dealing with all the embarrassing photos and videos of themselves on the Internet. But now that Sorkin is done writing his Steve Jobs biopic, Deadline reports, he will indeed be back to bring the show through one final, unflinching trip through the previous ...

Mark Shuttleworth in 2006.

Martin Schmitt

Canonical's UK-based operations earned $65.7 million in revenue during fiscal 2013, a significant boost over the previous year's revenue of $56.8 million. However, the company is in investment mode as it attempts to expand beyond desktops and servers to the mobile market. While Canonical lost $11.1 million in fiscal 2012, its losses rose to $21.3 million in fiscal 2013.

The numbers come from an annual report (PDF) made public this month, as required by UK law. The report provides our best look at the finances of Canonical, which is a private company and doesn't file the quarterly reports we see from public companies. This report has limitations, though, covering the 12 months through March 31, 2013, the date Canonical's fiscal year ended. It also doesn't cover Canonical's entire worldwide operations."As an international company, Canonical files public financial records in each jurisdiction where it operates," a Canonical spokesperson told Ars a few months back after we inquired about the previous year's report. The UK report "is not a representation of the situation of Canonical across our global operations," the company said.

The annual report (provided to Ars by financial research firm DueDil) seems to cover most of Canonical's business, though. The report says that $50.6 million of the reported $65.7 million in revenue came from sales outside the UK, including $48.2 million from outside Europe. The numbers include the operations of subsidiaries in the US, Canada, and China. China alone covers "the majority of global units shipped."(Canonical reported its numbers in US dollars because it is the "functional currency of the company.")

Beyoncé, champion of  “Independent Women” and “Single Ladies” everywhere, has penned a new essay about gender equality in America. The short piece will run in a new eBook due out later this month, and it finds the pop singer venturing into college freshman territory by sounding off on the inequality of pay for male and female workers in America. As Beyoncé says in her essay, “The average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes,” and “unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change.” Preach, sister. Beyoncé goes on to say that boys have to be taught, “the rules of equality and respect”—something her husband Jay Z has no doubt undergone a crash course in since they got together.

Other pieces in the eBook were penned by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Eva Longoria, and Jada Pinkett Smith. The ...

Electronic Arts' brash company spokesman Jeff Brown has departed the company to handle public affairs at sports camera creator GoPro, according to a recent update on his LinkedIn page.

Brown served as EA's senior VP for corporate communications for 14 years. Speaking with VentureBeat, Brown said that he "fell in love" with GoPro, and that his departure shouldn't change opinions of EA.

"I spent 14 years at EA," Brown told VentureBeat. "The only institution I have ever done longer is my marriage. When I started, I thought it would be a 12-month gig. I had no intention of staying that long. I fell in love with games, and I have a lot of close friends at EA. I am completely supportive of Andrew. But it was a good time for me to say goodbye."

Brown was well-known for being outspoken in his corporate responses. In one such example, after Oddworld Inhabitants founder Lorne Lanning spoke out against being approached by EA during the development of Stranger's Wrath, Brown responded memorably.

"We wish Lorne luck on the game and recommend Lithium for the paranoia and Tourette Syndrome," Brown said. "Nobody here remembers a jet, a Ferrari or an offer to buy his company."

Brown was also at the forefront of EA's handling of controversy for Mass Effect 2. After Fox News Channel incorrectly claimed that Mass Effect 2 featured "full digital nudity," Brown requested a revision to "set the record straight" on inaccuracies.

"As video games continue to take audiences away from television, we expect to see more TV news stories warning parents about the corrupting influence of interactive entertainment," Brown said in 2008. "But this represents a new level of recklessness.

"Do you watch the Fox Network? Do you watch Family Guy? Have you ever seen The OC? Do you think the sexual situations in Mass Effect are any more graphic than scenes routinely aired on those shows? Do you honestly believe that young people have more exposure to Mass Effect than to those prime time shows?"

Brown's move is another departure from EA in a list that most recently includes Chillingo founders Chris Byatte and Joe Wee, PopCap CEO Dave Roberts and Criterion co-founders Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry.

Following the departure of EA executive chairman John Riccitiello, the head of the EA Sports label and Origin, Andrew Wilson, was appointed the company's new CEO. Speaking with Polygon in November of last year, Wilson said that the company is still working to overcome The Consumerist's award for "Worst Company in America" two years running. Brown's departure could reflect a change in tone for the publisher, which struggled with its image and customer relations after the release of SimCity and Battlefield 4 last year.

Polygon has reached out to Brown seeking comment.

The early ’90s were spoiled for choice when it came to comic book adaptations. Not only was Batman: The Animated Series on the air, but X-Men led Marvel’s push to get on the small screen, diving right into the often convoluted continuity of everyone’s favorite mutants, luring in a generation of fans, and paving the way for cartoons to follow. That’s why we’ve set out to review every single episode of the ’90s X-Men animated series. This week: The Phoenix Saga continues with Juggernaut, Banshee and Black Tom Cassidy added in, because apparently there wasn’t enough going on already.

Previously, on X-Men:

In our last episode, the X-Men returned from their space adventure only to find that Jean had developed new powers and a spiffy new costume to go along with it — a costume that I referred to as being a John Byrne design, even though it was actually Dave Cockrum, which should be obvious since it appeared pretty early into the “All New X-Men” run. Sorry about the mistake, I do that every time, and you’d think I’d know better by this point. Perhaps overwhelmed by her new threads, Jean was hospitalized for vague reasons, while space rays made Professor X’s evil side erupt from his body to try to kill the X-Men. Evil X was eventually defeated, and Professor X decided he should head over to Muir Island to get to the bottom of things, by which I mean making a cosmic booty call that was answered by Lilandra, a sexy bird-lady from space.

In our discussion of Gambit’s manscaping, most readers agreed that he’s definitely drawing in chest hair with a Sharpie, but only one of you — Matt Shea — went as far as backing up your theory with a screenshot from a previous episode that showed Gambit shirtless. On Twitter, another reader provided evidence in the form of the Marvel Swimsuit Special, which depicted a similarly shorn Remy LeBeau.

I’m glad we got to the bottom of this mystery.

Before we get into the actual episode, I want to point out that yes, this is “The Phoenix Saga – Part 2,” even though it’s the third part of the series and last week brought us “Part II” of the story. That’s not a typo, at least not on my part — the people who made this show actually forgot which part of the story they were on while they were making the episode. Either that, or they just blanked on which number it is that comes between “II” and “IV.” Both seem equally likely.

As the erroneous title fades, we’re here at Muir Island, watching Moira MacTaggert and her new boyfriend Sean Cassidy making out on a romantic cliffside as Professor X’s room explodes in the background.

Explosions and shrieking tend to ruin the mood for all but the most ardent smooches, and this is no exception. Moira wants to check it out and Sean insists on coming with her, but she tells him to stay put because she thinks Xavier’s envy over their Frenching has driven him to unleash his dark side. This seems like a pretty poor evaluation of Xavier’s character, but let’s be real here. The dude did just attempt to murder his only friends and surrogate children, and these are pretty rough circumstances. If you’re Charles Xavier and you go over to your ex-wife’s house, only to find her cuddling up to a guy with a head of flowing, thick hair, standing there on his functional legs, you’re probably going to be at least a little jealous.

Still, she needn’t have worried. Not about that, I mean. Stuff’s still blowing up all over the place and Cedric Smith is still shouting Xavier’s signature “NNNYYYARRRRGGG” of pain, so there’s clearly a problem. The thing is, it’s even weirder than an astral projection bent on revenge: It’s Chuck being menaced by his magically indestructible half brother while a bird lady in a sexy spider dominatrix outfit tries to defend him.

Seriously, can we talk about Lilandra for a second? First, her voice is recorded in such a way that she sounds like she’s delivering her lines from within a coffee can. There’s all kinds of weird echo and reverb for her, and it’s never addressed or explained since Eric the Red and Gladiator just sound normal. Second, what is going on with that outfit. That thing makes no sense. It’s a straight up Sexy Spider Halloween costume. Like, there’s no getting around it, that is 100% what it is. If you saw that in a live action show, you would break your thumbs tweeting about it, and this is a cartoon. She could be wearing literally anything — it costs the same amount of money to have someone draw something that makes sense; they’re not saving any money by dressing her up in something that they got on clearance at Party Warehouse. It’s just weird, and when she gets tied up later in the episode, it goes straight to alarmingly fetishistic. And that’s without the part where Juggernaut asks if she wants to spank him.

No wonder they weren’t paying attention to the episode numbers. They clearly had other priorities.

There’s a bit of a fight scene that includes the pretty much mandatory “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!“, but it all goes wrong for Chuck and Lilandra when someone else joins the fight and starts blasting hot pink leopard print rays.

Has Erica Henderson become a supervillain?! Nope. It’s just the Juggernaut’s usual partner in crime, Black Tom Cassidy.

I remember reading about Black Tom when I was a kid. Not in a comic, but in a magazine like Flux or Wizard that was running down the worst mutants. Those articles can be pretty reductive and miss the point a lot of the time — and look, I say this as someone who laughs at his own “Aquaman sucks” jokes on a pretty regular basis, but Wizard once labeled Jack Kirby’s New Gods as a “worst” — but it was really hard to argue the point when it came to Black Tom. As they said, his mutant power is that he’s friends with the Juggernaut and he once had a disease that was slowly turning him into a tree. Any way you slice it, that’s not exactly Dr. Doom.

Here, though, he’s at least able to KO both Xavier and Lilandra, who seems to have a battle strategy built around poses usually seen on USA Up All Night:

It’s not very effective.

BT reveals that they’re hear to kidnap Lilandra, and Jugs throws Charles out the window for good measure. He starts plunging to his death, but fortunately, it turns out that Moira’s new boyfriend is also the Banshee, who leaps off the cliff screaming like Roger Daltrey in “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” It’s actually pretty cool at first, but it wears out its welcome once you realize that you’re not about to see David Caruso drop a pun about a murder victim. Either way, once he’s rescued, Charles has a pretty difficult time convincing Moira and Banshee that Lilandra actually exists. Again, this seems pretty weird when you consider that they’re willing to accept “magically indestructible half-brother” without so much as batting an eye.

Back on this side of the Atlantic, Cyclops and his turtleneck are keeping a watchful eye on Jean as she sleeps in the hospital, which means he has a front row seat for the moment that she explodes into flames in the shape of a bird and then announces that she and the Phoenix are one. He gets a little freaked out, but before you start feeling any sympathy for that dork, keep in mind that he phrases it as “What’s going to happen… to us?” It’s not always about you, Scott.

The rest of the X-Men are chilling right outside the door, which is pretty convenient, since the Professor calls up from Muir Island and asks them to come out and help him find his missing and possibly imaginary new girlfriend. “She’s from, uh, space,” he undoubtedly said over the phone. “So she goes to a different school. You don’t know her.”

Also worth noting, Gambit’s eyebrows have officially gotten Out Of Control.

Real talk: Michael Keaton was not a great Batman, but he would’ve been a phenomenal mid-90s Gambit. Think about it. You know I’m right.

Cyclops mopes about how he doesn’t want to go out on a mission and wants to stay there brooding over Jean, and Wolverine quite rightly flips right the heck out on him, reminding him that “you ain’t the only one worried about Jean! Aliens in spaceships runnin’ round messin’ with Xavier, the whole blasted world’s turning upside-down!” I’m not quite sure it’s all that much weirder than what they deal with in their day-to-days, but it’s enough to snap Cyclops back into action. Or, you know, what passes for action when we’re talking to Cyclops.

Back in Ireland, Black Tom and Juggernaut are hanging out at the Cassidys’ ancestral home, waiting to be paid off for their kidnapping. Soon enough, a spaceship lands and out walks Eric the Red, who I would like to remind you dresses like this:

When did this show become a full-on BDSM porno with all the actual sex cut out? Was it sudden, or did it just happen so gradually that we didn’t notice until people were being tied up and carried around by muscle bros in red leather half-shirts?

After a bit of haggling and some strong-arming from the Juggernaut, Eric agrees to pay them for their time, just as the X-Men arrive at Muir Island. Moira insists that this is all just in Professor X’s head — and Banshee backs her up, referring to her as “Dr. MacTaggert,” which is pretty weird for someone he’s making out with — and Wolverine basically threatens to stab them if they don’t shut up.

If only he would do that every time anyone said anything, this would probably be the best show ever.

At Cassidy Keep, Eric makes the $10,000,000 payoff in exchange for Lilandra, who is of course tied to a chair at this point. She still has her psychic connection with Charles, though, and since he is not currently a waterlogged corpse being dashed on the cliffs of Muir Island, she’s able to reach out to his mind and send him a mental snapchat of the Cassidy family crest. Between that and Wolverine confirming that he smells something that “ain’t even human” in Charles’s room, that’s all the evidence that Moira needs to accept that her ex-husband’s alien bondage fantasy is actually a real live girl.

Soon enough, the X-Men are on their way. Now, keep in mind that a) Muir Island is off the coast of Scotland and Cassidy Keep is somewhere in Ireland, a minimum of about ten miles across the ocean, and b) they have an airplane. So how do they cover the distance? Well, if you guessed that they’d opt to leave the Blackbird parked outside Moira’s house while Rogue and Banshee carried the rest of the team in the most undignified way possible, give yourself a gold star.

I believe the idea here is that they’re trying to sneak in and an SR-71 Blackbird is a little showy for a stealth operation, but if that is the case, riding in with a guy whose mutant power is super-loud screaming, which he immediately uses to take down the “space station zombies” Eric’s been using as henchmen for three (or possibly two) weeks now.

What follows is actually one of the show’s best fight scenes, even taking into account that it’s set in a big, featureless castle with Super Mario-esque red brick walls and no furniture. On one side, it’s Wolverine, Gambit, Jubilee and Rogue, and on the other, it’s Eric the Red, Black Tom and the Juggernaut, and they break out into this battle that’s staged really well, with lots of back and forth action, switching between opponents and clever uses of super-powers. Maybe the single best part of it is when Rogue slams the Juggernaut through a series of walls, providing the background for smaller skirmishes that fade in and out of focus as the fight rages:

It’s actually really cool, and creates a sense of depth that would be a lot harder to pull off on the comics page, making it one of the few examples of the show really innovating with what it’s doing. It’s ambitious and it works beautifully, definitely an improvement over the fight scenes we’ve been getting for the past couple of seasons, even though it’s a fairly short set piece.

Eventually, once Lilandra frees herself from bondage by arching her back, the fight spills out onto the rooftops. The baddies are making a break for it, but before they have the chance, we get another pretty cool technique: a first-person POV shot of a pair of outstretched fists flying through the atmosphere and closing in on Muir Island.

Again, it’s a nice technique to build suspense, even though it only shows up about 30 seconds before the reveal. And that reveal? It’s Gladiator of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard, who shows up in classic Villain Upgrade style to lay a verbal smackdown on Eric the Red, throw the Juggernaut to another country with a flick of his wrist, and knock Rogue, the X-Men’s heaviest hitter, out just by looking at her with his heat vision. It’s a really awesome introduction, and while it’s a cliché technique, it’s effective as heck too.

Professor X is, of course, telepathically creeping on all these proceedings, but Jean is also telepathically creeping on him, so when he starts flipping out about this mohawked superman attempting to drag his new ladybird off to space, she goes full-on Phoenix right there in the hospital and sets off to cause a ruckus.

Phoenix shows up at Muir Island, and the astonishing levels of power we’ve just seen proves to be completely ineffective at dealing with her. She crushes Gladiator with one hit, and flings him out to space, letting him live as a mercy. But that in turn takes a lot out of her, leaving Jean weakened as Emperor D’Ken himself shows up in his spaceship.

Holy crap, did this show just get really good?!

Discussion Question: This episode had one of the show’s best action sequences, so let’s talk about our favorite fight scenes and set pieces in animation! I’ll get things started by saying that I love the big planetarium fight in Batman: The Animated Series‘s woefully underrated “Prophecy of Doom,” and that the pirate ship battle from the Adventures of Tintin movie might be top five action sequences I’ve ever seen in a film, animated or not. What are your favorites?

Next Week: The Phoenix Saga continues, as we skip over any hypothetical third chapter there might’ve been and go straight to Part IV!

Welcome to the latest episode of ComicsAlliance Presents “Kate or Die,” a series of exclusive comic strips created by one of our favorite webcomics cartoonists, Kate Leth! In this episode, Kate reviews some helpful tips for enhancing the happiness of your favorite creators at comic book conventions.

Also a contributor to BOOM! Studios’ Adventure Time line, IDW’s Locke & Key and Image’s The Strange Talent of Luthor Strode, Kate’s self-published work, seen on Tumblr and comic cons and elsewhere, has earned her a dedicated following for its idiosyncratic blend of adorable irreverence and brutal honesty (often equally adorable) toward topics of all kinds, from dating to depression to Doctor Who. For ComicsAlliance, Kate or Die focuses mainly on the sort of subject matter you’ve come to expect from the site, but you should also anticipate Kate taking the strip to some unpredictably cool places.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the iconic and ubiquitous AK-47, outwardly expressed pride in his rifle before his death last month, even though its being used by terrorists saddened him. However, in a letter sent to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow, the late engineer felt "spiritual pain" about his invention's capacity to kill, and wondered if he was, in the end, responsible for the deaths it caused.

The letter was sent in May of 2012, and was published today in the Russian-language newspaper Izvestia. The BBC translated a portion of the letter, revealing the inventors self-doubt:

"My spiritual pain is unbearable."

"I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people's lives, then can it be that I... a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?"

"The longer I live," he continued, "the more this question drills itself into my brain and the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression."

According to the BBC, Izvestia received correspondence confirming that the Russian Patriarch replied to Kalashnikov's letter. The press secretary for the Russian Patriarch, Cyril Alexander Volkov, told the paper, "The Church has a very definite position: when weapons serve to protect the Fatherland, the Church supports both its creators and the soldiers who use it."

A few days ago, Google rolled out a potentially invasive new feature — if you have both a Gmail address and Google+ account, other Google+ and Gmail users will soon be able to send messages right into your inbox, even if you never gave them your email address. By default, Google says it is letting anyone on Google+ send messages to your inbox, even if you don't have them in a circle, making the service completely opt-out rather than opt-in. However, we've just learned that isn't the case across the board.

For "high-profile" users who may have thousands of users following them, Google has decided to make the default more limited. Those users will only be able to receive messages from Google+ users that they have actively put in circles. "Because you have a lot of followers on Google+, only people in your circles can contact you by default," reads the email Google sent out announcing the new feature to users with thousands of followers.

So while these Google+ emails are opt-out for most, Google does seem concerned with respecting the privacy of a small subset of its users. It's a baffling decision — there's little doubt high-profile users are more likely targets to receive unwanted messages, but the very fact that Google decided to make some accounts more private is a tacit admission that its new "feature" is rife with the potential for abuse.

On February 19, Boom! Studios will celebrate two years of Adventure Time comics as the ongoing series’ 25th issue arrives in stores. It’s a milestone for Boom!, and especially writer Ryan North and the art team of Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb, who have been working together consecutively for the full run aside from issue #5 (which was drawn by Mike Holmes — but hey, Paroline and Lamb needed a second to get married). To commemorate the release of Adventure Time #25, ComicsAlliance got in touch with its Eisner Award-winning art team for insights into their collaborative process and the secret to their ongoing success.

CA: Congratulations on more than two years of [nearly] uninterrupted Adventure Time art. What’s your headspace like on the book at this point? I imagine you’re already working a few issues past #25 as I write this. Do you feel like grizzled veterans or has the time kind of flown by?

Shelly Paroline and Braden Lamb: Thank you so much! We should mention that our run on Adventure Time hasn’t been fully uninterrupted – Mike Holmes stepped in and drew issue 5 the month we got married – but it has been a huge part of our lives. It was daunting at first, but now we have a lot of work to look back on that proves we can do it, and also gives us a goal to meet, or hopefully surpass.

CA: The two of you have a really interesting workflow on Adventure Time where a lot of your art duties overlap. Can you kind of break down your typical (or atypical) process?

SP & BL: Sure! From the start, we were both really eager to have a hand in drawing this comic so we found a way to collaborate each step of the way. When we get Ryan’s script, the two of us sit down together at a computer with mirrored displays and work up the layout in Manga Studio. Once we have a rough idea of the page and panel composition we each claim different pages to pencil, and send the penciled book off to Ryan and Shannon, our editor, for feedback. We divvy up inking and coloring, between us — Braden’s primarily on colors and Shelli on inks.

CA: You also just launched The Midas Flesh with AT writer Ryan North. Is your process the same on that book as Adventure Time, or have you sorted out another way of teaming up on art?

SP & BL: We’ve struck a different balance of work for The Midas Flesh. The subject matter is right up Braden’s alley with sci-fi tech, alien worlds, and dinosaurs running around so he’s handling pencils and Shelli’s on inks and color. We still like working together on layouts at the beginning to make sure we have the best visual storytelling that two brains can produce.

CA: As a guy who has been married to a creative person for several years himself, I must ask. How do you handle inevitable deadline-related stresses and/or squabbles as a collaborating couple? Since you are still relative newlyweds, feel free to lie and say you never argue.

SP & BL: We’ve learned a lot, working together on this series for so long. And since we’ve noticed more people collaborating on art as a team, we’d like to offer these folks some advice for keeping the workflow and the relationship healthy.

- First, Make sure everyone’s on the same page before starting the project. We’ve resolved a lot of our chronic problems by collaborating on layouts (similar to thumbnails) at the outset, so there’s no surprises when a deadline is breathing down our necks.

- We also find it’s beneficial to frankly say what aspects of the page or elements are important to you, and giving each other a few veto votes — for instance Shelli is particular when it comes to consistent character designs and Braden often pushes to incorporate more elements into a panel to reinforce the scene or the action.

- When you’re working with people who have different strengths (i.e. human beings), recognize your own strengths, as well as your weaknesses. And be proud of your partner’s strengths, and allow them to be the authority on that skill. Putting your ego aside allows for a speedier workflow. This one of the reasons we started working together, because we’re already honest with each other as a couple.

- Always be willing to change the way you work if you’re working as a team, for the sake of the project. We believe we make good comics because of the thought that goes into every page, and our shared commitment to good, clear, and inventive visual storytelling. The way we work together means that not only are our voices are equally matched, but they sound good together.

- Collaborating closely on a creative project is not for everyone, but if you’re coming up in comics, you might consider working that way for the benefits of involving two creative minds. If you do, start early, as it can take a while to get used to. And yes, stress will find its way in, especially when deadlines loom. Manage stress, notice your partner’s stress and address it. Over all, respect the person you’re working with, whether you’re married to them or not.

And for the record, we never argue. We just have IDEA BATTLES.

CA: The two of you, along with Ryan, were nominated for a Harvey last year and you won an Eisner. How have these success and others — like AT’s continued sales, etc. — shaped how you see yourselves as artists?

SP & BL: We feel grateful to be part of such a strong team; from our editor who gave us the chance to draw it, to Ryan North whose amazing scripts inspire us, to all the people who created the hugely inventive show, not to mention the fans who have followed it into a whole new medium. All that great energy makes our job so easy and fun.

CA: What’s the most rewarding thing that’s come out of your time on Adventure Time?

SP & BL: It’s got to be the people we meet, and the impact this comic has on them. For so many kids, this is their first comic, whether they came to it from the show or from a parent who’s read comics for years. We’ve met families who read the comic together. We’ve even heard from parents who say that their child has struggled with reading, and the Adventure Time comic has helped them to keep trying.

CA: On the flip side, what’s been the biggest challenge about working on the same book for more than 25 issues straight?

SP & BL: Balancing work and personal life can be tough, especially when working with the schedule of an ongoing monthly comic. However, we managed to do some traveling recently by staying with Braden’s sister in England for a month for a change of scenery. We planned to work there during the week on our other comic projects and visit the country on weekends. It felt like the ideal month to take a break from Adventure Time, but then the script for issue 20 — drawn from one character’s perspective — reeled us back in of course. Every fifth issue gives us a little revitalizing burst actually because we get a chance to play with the comics medium.

CA: Has your relationship with the show evolved since you began working on the comic? Do you watch new episodes with a fan mentality or do you feel like you’re studying?

SP & BL: Absolutely. We still enjoy it as fans, but we definitely notice different things, knowing we’re going to be drawing the same characters. We especially pick up on Jake’s variations, since he’s fun to draw. Overall we’re challenged by how fresh and imaginative they keep the show. For instance, “The Vault” was a really inspiring episode. It hit a note that perhaps the comic has not, with some new and interesting design elements, and a new character who carried the whole story. Minds were blown, and it raised the bar for us.

CA: While the AT comic team works kind of independently from the staff of the TV show, at this point you’ve gone to enough conventions that I have to imagine you’ve met or interacted with a number of the folks who work on the cartoon — especially given how many of them also make comics. What’s your relationship like with those creators and what do you think it lends to your work on the comic?

SP & BL: We haven’t had the chance to interact with many people involved in the show, but we take notice when their individual styles pop up on the cartoon. We’re often inspired by the work of the artists both on and off the screen. Braden developed the gum effects in the most recent story arc based on the art style of Michael DeForge.

CA: I mentioned The Midas Flesh earlier, but are there any other projects either of you are working on in 2014 that our readers should know about?

SP & BL: Over the coming year we’ll be illustrating a graphic novel for First Second and developing an original young adult comic, although we’re not sure either of those will be on shelves in 2014. Braden is the colorist for Raina Telgemeier’s new graphic novel Sisters, which will be out this September. So we’re staying busy!

Last week it was revealed that the 27 pages of missing Denys Cowan comic art, believed by some to have been stolen, was finally returned to the artist. A short time later, Stephen Bissette — the artist best known for his seminal work with Alan Moore and John Totleben on Saga of the Swamp Thing — obliquely connected the Cowan news to an anecdote of his and Totleben’s own, concerning Swap Thing pages that had gone missing from the offices of DC Comics 30 years ago. Bissette posted about the story on Facebook, and when pressed for more information, stated that he and Cowan once had a conversation about the missing Swamp Thing work, and that Cowan implied he was aware of who had stolen the art. According to Bissette, when he and Totleben asked him to reveal who was behind the purported theft, Cowan refused.

Cowan was made aware of the accusations, and calls them baseless, stating in no uncertain terms that no such conversation between the creators about missing Swamp Thing art ever took place. Further, Cowan accused Bissette of slander, and suggested that, should Bissette’s claims continue, he may take legal action.

Bissette made his initial claims via Facebook while linking to the news of Cowan’s art being returned: “Now, maybe the stolen (stolen right from the DC offices) Saga of the Swamp Thing #34 ‘Rites of Spring’ cover art and the last page of that same issue will turn up and be returned to its rightful owners, John Totleben and me?” Expounding on the situation in the comments below the status update, Bissette recalled the conversation he claims he and Cowan had regarding the missing pages:

Stolen from the DC offices about two months after the issue came out, along with pinups/covers to #32 and #33. We got back the interior art to SOTST #34, except for the last page, and the cover was never, ever returned. This came to mind with the news of Denys Cowan’s art recovery because Denys once indicated he knew who had our art—when we pressed, we were told, “Um, not cool.” End of conversation. Well, that sucked, eh?

The statement was brought to the attention of Cowan and, judging by his words, he was far from pleased. He responded on his own Facebook page, stating that not only had this conversation never happened, but he was fully unaware of this situation until Bissette’s claims came to light this past weekend. The artist’s full statement is below, unedited:

“I’m very fortunate to get my art back from UPS so grateful for the support from my friends and fans..however i shouldn’t be surprised that negative stuff pops up from time to time
Stephen Bissette posted this yesterday… I don’t get into FB wars i like to post interesting different things, photos, art, comics, etc so answering this kind of post is a drag

Bissette has decided to attach some 30 year old situation that I knew nothing about to my UPS missing art story. It’s time that he and the 40 something or so misguided people who “liked” this bulls**t get the truth

Bissette is implying that I knew where his art was/is or that I stole it, which is a very serious allegation

I barely know Bisette, I haven’t had more than a two word conversation with him ever.
I’ve never spoken to him about any missing Swamp Thing art at any time

The conversation Bissette talks about in his comments never happened

Maybe he has me confused with some other black artist freelancing for DC Comics at the time

i never worked in the art return dept at DC 30 years ago, maybe Bissette should check with them

i don’t understand why Bissette waited 30 years to bring this up and put it on me, but I do understand that there is a lot of jealousy and hate in the world…
I don’t like my name being smeared and slandered by Bissette and his sheepole and I’m willing to have a face to face conversation about these lies anytime… I’m not hard to find

I’m not in the stolen art business and to implicate me in anyway is slander
and unless he cleans this bulls**t up the next letter is from my lawyers..”

There’s a lot to process here, and to be honest, I can’t imagine why either man would lie about this situation. Most any professional would likely tell you that this kind of accusation — an artist claiming you essentially abetted the theft of their work — is very serious. In the interest of full disclosure, I worked with Cowan during my time in DC/Vertigo editorial, and I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that he’d willfully withhold information about missing art from a fellow artist. But it’s also difficult to believe that Bissette’s story is entirely fictional, as on the surface there’s just no reason for him to suddenly bring this up 30 years later. So if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a matter of mistaken identity. I imagine Bissette and Totleben did have this conversation with someone – again, it’s such a specific recollection on Bissette’s part that I could easily believe it took place — but that someone wasn’t Cowan.

There’s one sentence in Cowan’s statement that stands out to me above all others: “Maybe he has me confused with some other black artist freelancing for DC Comics at the time.” On a deeply personal level, this is something I relate to. In my near six years working at DC, far too many creators confused me with the one or two other black men they knew of who worked there — some continuing to do so after being corrected multiple times — to the extent that I would go as far as to call it a common occurrence. For the record, I am in no way accusing Bissette of racism — I shouldn’t have to say that, but I know that I do. That said, the uncomfortable truth here is that there is almost always an underlying racial dynamic to a white man accusing a black man of theft, or abetting in theft. Reading that might upset you, but that doesn’t make it any less true. And when you’re discussing events that took place at a company that has had relatively few black men in its employ, that dynamic is all the more pronounced.

Whatever happened, we do know one thing: two pages of art, including perhaps the most memorable image from one of the more acclaimed series in comic history, have been missing for 30 years. This is decidedly unjust, and likely quite painful for the creators involved. I feel comfortable saying that nearly everyone in comics would like to see Bissette and Totleben’s work returned to them, in the same way Cowan’s just was. I imagine that’s something we can all agree on.

It wasn’t that long ago that the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic animated series did an episode all about the joys of reading. It’s a good lesson for the kids, but it does raise an interesting question about just where you go with literary themes once that’s done — especially in the MLP comic, which is presumably already being read by children who enjoy, you know, reading. Well, if you’re Heather Nuhfer, Amy Mebberson and Heather Breckel, then the answer is simple: You tell a story all about how the joy of reading presents its own life-threatening (but fun and adventurous) dangers!

Such is the case in this week’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #15, where Twilight Sparkle and her running crew have to contend with page-devouring bookworms by jumping into their favorite books, and potentially destroying the bonds that separate fiction from reality. Well. Pony reality, I mean. Check out the first few pages below!

Not for nothin’, Twilight, but If you’re only seven pages into this whole thing, I doubt things are going to be back to normal. Otherwise, that’s going to be a pretty boring comic.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #15 is out this Wednesday, January 15. Here’s the official solicitation:

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #15

Heather Nuhfer (w) • Amy Mebberson (a) • Agnes Garbowska, Mebberson (c)

Things are getting positively bookish in Ponyville! When a magical bookworm starts to cause some literary mischief, it’s only a matter of time before things start to get out of hoof! It’s up to our ponies to set things right… but will they want to when Daring Do shows up?

FC • 32 pages • $3.99

The Annotated ‘My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic’ Volume One