This is a pretty clever ad for Full Sail University Online.  It’s, like… the birdcage is a symbol, man.  However, it was a hell of a lot more clever in its original inception: as the subject of a Graham Kahler comic.

This is a page from Songbirds, one of Graham Kahler’s better known works.  I think I first read it in 2006.  Kahler isn’t a huge celebrity or anything, but he has a following, enough that people who are into comics and illustration know his stuff.  And he’s indie enough that he probably couldn’t do anything to defend himself in the event that someone did steal his work.  The resemblance here is uncanny.  I obviously can’t outright say that this is an appropriation of Kahler’s concept without knowing more, but if it were my intellectual property and I saw this… I’d be livid.

The only piece of news that matters from this year’s San Diego Comic Con: Geoff Johns is writing a special one-shot that pits Krypto the superdog against Dex-Starr the blood-vomiting cat.  It’s going to be a Valentine’s day special.  For reals.

The Story So Far: after a long postcard campaign from jerks like me, DC Comics is celebrating the 600th issue of Wonder Woman this month.  Also the 600th issues of Batman and Superman, but those aren’t as important as Wonder Woman.   I was reading iFanboy this morning and stumbled across Jim Lee’s redesign of Wonder Woman for her 600th issue.  I am, surprisingly, not completely disgusted.  Mainly because Wonder Woman’s iconic costume is completely ridiculous and inappropriate; I lovingly call it the USO Ameritits Bikini. Anything is an improvement.

But still… leather jacket?  Black choker?  Jim Lee shouldn’t be trusted with stuff like this (see his bastardization of The Huntress character in Hush).  My favorite take on Wonder Woman remains Carly Monardo’s, mainly because she’s recognizing Wonder Woman’s roots as the princess of effin’ Themyscira and not trying to dress her up as some patriotic Rush Limbaugh fap-fest.

You can see more redesigns like this over at Project Rooftop, a blog that serves no purpose other than hosting fan redesigns of superhero costumes.  Which is wonderful.

I know I’m behind by years on this one, but I just finished Joe Kelly and Ken Nimura’s I Kill Giants. This is such an interesting book! It follows a D&D addicted nerd through middle school as she attempts to come to terms with some personal issues. Whatever, the little things like plot and setting don’t matter: this book is actually about self-invented mythology, and the momentum ideas can gain in time of crisis. When I was a kid I would pretend that if I stood real still and breathed slowly I could jump between different realities. It was actually just a way to control my asthma attacks, but after years of doing it my brain was in another place. I obsessed over old Star Trek and Twilight Zone episodes, read everything I could find on sting theory, and read the first few chapters of A Wrinkle In Time almost daily. If I didn’t get distracted by puberty I don’t know what would have happened.

Uh, so… that’s more or less what I Kill Giants is about.

Nimura’s art is loose, kinetic… there are strokes that feel so carefree that it’s hard to believe the layouts were planned at all, which fits so elegantly with the narrative. This is a really wonderful story. I give it three out of four boners.

I wish I had time to make a boner scale graphic.