The Latest on My Heroes!

My heroes are hard ato work, producing new stuff, so let's update you on what's going on.

First up, Kevin Smith. Smith got a bad reputation in the comic book world, what with his 3-year delay between issues 3 and 4 of Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil that Men Do. But, Smith has been slowly working his way back into writing comics. He swore, after that Spider-Man/Black Cat fiasco, that we would take a new approach to writing comics. And that is, if the story arc is going to run for x issues, he'll sit down and write all x issues and fire them off to the publisher. No more of this, "Writing one issue per month" crap. that way, if an issue runs late, he can deflect the blame to the artist.

That's how he wrote his return to comics, the 3-issue miniseries Batman: Cacophony, which ran December-March and is due out in trade paperback form this fall. And, based on that, DC is giving him another crack at the Dark Knight.

Smith's next maxi-series for DC is Batman: The Widening Gyre. This 12-issue series will chronicle Batman training a new hero to patrol the streets of Gotham. And here's what Smith is doing to incorporate his trademark tardiness. The 12-issue series will be published in 2, 6-issue books. The first six issues (aka "Book I") come out, he takes a six month break, and then the final six issues (akak "Book II")come out. He says he already has those first six issues completed and sent off to DC.

But here's where things get tricky. During that six month break, he's going to start writing a bi-monthly comic about this new hero that Batman has trained.

But that's not all!

Smith goes on to recount how, after he finished setting this up with DC, he got a call from the comic book publisher Dynamite Entertainment. Turns out Dynamite just got the comic rights to the Green Horent, and how would Smith like to write the first arc in their Green Hornet book?

Smith said, "Sure!" Smith's Green Hornet arc is going to be largely based on his unproduced screenplay, back when he signed on to write and direct it and then chickened out because Jersey Girl tanked.

So, there you have it. Smith is back in comics.

And, my other hero, "Weird Al" Yankovic. On his Twitter feed, Weird Al has just announced that he's finished recording all the original, non-parody songs for his next album! Now, is he going to put them in the vault for six months while he works on parodies, like he usually does?

Nope!

He's going to release them digitally (e.g. on iTunes) next month.