BEWARE: SPOILERS FOR STORMWATCH #1!

Last week saw the release of Stormwatch #1 from DC, written by Paul Cornell and with art by Miguel Sepulveda. More importantly, it features the return, or perhaps more accurately the introduction, of Apollo and Midnighter; two of comics most renowned homosexual characters.

As you may recall from earlier editions of Tales, I wondered how we might find these characters represented, what this would mean for LGBTQ representation in comics as a whole, and also how this marries up with DC’s claims of a broader, more diverse and inclusive universe.

With the issue finally out, I felt I should say something about it. However, I admit this is proving the hardest entry to write…because there’s not an awful lot to say. Maybe that in itself is worth exploring.

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So you know all those DC relaunch titles? All the number one issues are going to be collected into one hardback volume acting like a bible for the New 52 and the DC Universe in general.

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Link: http://www.animeemanga.com/marvel-e-madhouse-di-nuovo-insieme-per-lanime-blade-879/

Considering Blade started life as a supporting character in The Tomb of Dracula back in the 70's he's had a charmed afterlife. After his first appearance in Tomb #10, he then showed up in nearly every horror book Marvel had including Adventure into Fear and Vampire Tales, before staking his way into the superhero/vigilante genre with Ghost Rider, Nightstalkers and Spider-Man, and we haven't even got into his solo adventures yet! He's had numerous volumes of ongoing titles, one-shots, mini-series's and even made it onto the critically acclaimed Captain Britain and MI:13 team as written by everyone's favourite nice guy, Paul Cornell.

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In a follow up to our previous reviews of Stan Lee's The Traveler we present the other BOOM! Studios 'Stan Lee' books:

STARBORN issues 1-4

Characters created by Stan “the man” Lee
Written by Chris Roberson (Superman, Cinderella: a fable tale)
Illustrated by Khary Randolph (Hellboy, Teen Titans)

The story centres around frustrated writer (aren’t we all) Benjamin Warner, who since childhood has dreamt of a fantasy realm called the human civilization. Benjamin has written a book about this and our story begins as he is waiting for a reply from a publisher. Things start to go a bit crazy when it turns out that Ben’s fictional story isn’t quite as fictional as it seems. Maybe being stuck in his office wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

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Not only can you listen to the podcast of our Secrets and Lies Live show from Cardiff International Comic Expo but now thanks to our sidekick camerman, Matt Pease you can see it in moving pictures. Watch as Chris Lynch, Paul Cornell, Rob Williams, Stuart Tipples, Charlie Adlard and Mike Collins take on the Sidekicks in the comic book news quiz with a twist.

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Link: http://www.sidekickcomicsuk.com/blogs/blog5.php/2011/01/04/sidekickcast-episode-50-home-aamp-away

For the 50th episode of the Sidekickcast (which you can find here) we wanted to give a little something back to our loyal listeners so we decided to run a competition. I'm not going to tell you what you have to do to win but there is an obvious clue in this post, you'll just have to listen to the show for that. I can tell you what you'll win though; we've got a Boneman avatar branded mug (see my avatar in the right hand corner of this post, that's it) signed by a whole host of comic book creators, including:

Chris Lynch
Jamie McKelivie
Paul Cornell
Anthony Johnston
Kieron Gillen
and
Chris Claremont
If you want to win the mug simply send your answer to either

sidekickcast@sidekickcomicsuk.com

or tweet to @sidekickcast using the hashtag #Iwantamug.

Link: http://www.londonexpo.com/

I had an absolutely great time at the MCM Expo 2010. One of the things that really made it, other than the things discussed by Gavin here, was the Cosplayers. They were an absolutely permanent fixture of the 3 day event, so much so that when on the way back from the Expo I found it weird to look around and not see them brightening up people's days.

So hat's off to all of the Cosplayers that made it to MCM Expo 2010. I didn't manage to make it to the Euro Cosplay finals like I'd wanted to but these folk certainly made up for it. The love and attention to detail that went into these guys' and gals' costumes really needed to be seen first hand to be believed, I just hope that these pics I snapped whilst wandering around do them justice.

If you see yourself here, post a comment at the end - it'd be great to hear from you and also the perfect opportunity for you to inform me that you are in fact Kurosaki Ichigo from Bleach and not Aunt May from Spiderman.

Ladies and gents I present to you, and in no particular order, the Cosplayers of MCM Expo 2010!

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Press Release-a-rama

STAN LEE'S SOLDIER ZERO is written by Paul Cornell (ACTION COMICS, DOCTOR WHO) with art by Javier Pina (SUPERMAN) and ships with seven covers, including A & B covers in a 50/50 split by Trevor Hairsine and Dave Johnson respectively, a 1-in-25 incentive by Phil Noto, 1-in-50 Undressed Trevor Hairsine Variant, 1-in-75 Undressed Dave Johnson Variant, 1-in-150 Undressed Phil Noto Variant and a special 1-in-300 Stan Lee signed variant cover with all new cover art by Kalman Andrasofszky.
SOLDIER ZERO #1 carries a Diamond Code of AUG100871 and is shipping this October.

We all knew it was coming, they'd given us enough warning and I'd even commented on one of the three charcaters Stan Lee was creating for Boom! here. What I hadn't guessed was that Paul Cornell would be writing the story for the character known as Soldier Zero and I couldn't be more happy about it. I wasn't so sure about these books but now I know there will be one of them that I'll definitely be picking up. For more details on all three books and a look at the cover of Soldier Zero #1 check out the press release below:

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Link: http://www.paulcornell.com/

So I was on Twitter last night and quite a few tweets came up saying
Paul Cornell was signed to DC exclusively from now on. Now this isn't confirmed but Bleeding Cool have been running with it since yeasterday so I'm guessing it's pretty concrete and it's a good fit.

My first thought was bugger! Now I never get to see him write a proper X-Men book with all the main guys and I never get to see another (brilliant) Wisdom series, Captain Britain and MI:13 was good but Wisdom that came before it was better. My next thought was good on him, I had the pleasure of meeting Paul at last year's BICS and he's was a thoroughly nice bloke and one of us, he's a geek too and seems to love it all just as much as we do. Marvel may have given him a lead into comic books but they also cancelled his best book, sure they gave him other stuff but he deserved better as far as I''m concerened. DC have given him Action Comics, to coin a Marvel phrase Nuff Said! If it is true Good Luck @ DC Mr Cornell.