CBGB was the legendary New York club that broke such acts as The Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads and Television – to name a few. BOOM! Studios and CBGB Holdings will release a sneak preview of the CBGB comic book mini-series at the SXSW CBGB Stories panel hosted by Seymour Stein, president and chairman of Sire Records. The first issue, with a Jaime Hernandez [Love & rockets] cover, will hit the shelves in July. During the CBGB Stories panel, a limited edition, original CBGB single page comic by Jesse Blaze Snider (DEADPOOL, TOY STORY) and Eisner Award-winner Chuck BB (BLACK METAL) will be passed out to the audience and press.

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The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade is, like its writers, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, many things.

It is an autobiography of the writers; a chronicle of how posting a web comic strip back in 1998 led to a company that publishes the web comic; has set up a multi-million dollar charity, and created the most important annual gamers’ convention in the world. All because Mike and Jerry created a web comic that allowed them to give their opinions on all things video game [and anything else that crosses their minds] form and substance.

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BOOM! Studios has built a good reputation as a comics publisher that both licences great properties [Uncle Scrooge, Cars, Die Hard, Farscape] and quality titles [Incorruptible, 10, Irredeemable] produced by some of comics’ most talented writers and artists [Mark Waid, Keith Giffen, Mike Mignola].

One of their most successful franchises is Farscape – they’ve produced several mini-series and have an ongoing series to boot. And now, they are about to unleash a unique Farscape series: Farscape: Scorpius – written by Farscape co-creator Rockne S. O’Bannon and featuring TV’s most intriguing villain! You can get on board by checking out the ten-page preview – along with an alternate cover, and information for ordering Farscape: Scorpius #0 following the jump.

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Anyone who’s read previous Com.X releases [Cla$$War, Razorjack, etc.] will likely be delighted with the publisher’s newest release, [Forty-Five]. It’s a unique idea that may have been inspired – at least in part – Who’s Who collections of the sort that Marvel and DC have published in the past, but with one unique twist. Rather than just being a collection of the various heroes and villains from a singular universe, creator/writer Andi Ewington presents the forty-five characters [super, normal and/or mech-based] as part of a search by its author, journalist James Stanley as he ponders the possible directions that his about-to-be-born first child might take – especially if he’s born with superpowers!

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Sony’s billion-dollar Spider-Man franchise is undergoing a complete overhaul. According to deadline.com, creative differences have led to Sam Raimi pulling out of Spider-Man 4.

Now the next Spider-Man film will be written by Jamie Vanderbilt [Zodiac] and will reboot the series – taking Peter Parker back to high school, where he will be a teenager dealing with contemporary teen problems while simultaneously dealing with the problems of a neophyte superhero.

The film will have a new cast and director. A start fate for film is yet to be determined with a targeted release date of “summer 2012.”

I usually don’t post dumb teasers like this, but hey it’s a slow news week and I’m genuinely curious about what Marvel has planned for Spiderman in 2010. Every since that dumb retcon a couple of years ago, I have to admit Spiderman has been on a roll lately, I still think he should get back together with M.J. Marvel sent along this little teaser but what does it all mean? I found it odd that Spiderman (except for a couple of one shots and the 5 part American Son arc) didn’t have much to do with all the Dark Reign sillyness (which is why the book has remained good), when you consider if anyone should take down Norman Osborn and end his Dark Reign it should be Spiderman and if he does, how would that affect his standing in the Marvel U?

Sometimes the story of how a comic comes to be is almost as interesting as the comic itself [think the metamorphosis of The Middleman from spec script to comic; from comic to TV series, and from TV series back to comic…]. Deadlocke, written by Arvid Nelson and drawn by Nick Stakal, has followed almost as interesting path.

This fresh take on the Jekyll/Hyde story first saw the light of day as a young adult novel called Venomous, by Chris Krovatin. Krovatin then adapted the novel into a movie script which, in turn, has become the comic Deadlocke.

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The Surrogates is a graphic novel that postulates a world in which we live vicariously through simulacra of ourselves to which we are connected cybernetically. Safe at home, we can work dangerous jobs without fear. A fireman’s surrogate can dash into a flaming building to rescue its inhabitants without any fear of his actual body suffering damage. Someone walking down the sidewalk need not fear falling objects, or an out of control car lurching onto that sidewalk. If an accident occurs, only the surrogate will be damaged. Its human operator will remain, safe and sound, at home.

In this world, surrogates have become big business – an overwhelming majority of United States citizens either own a surrogate outright, or are buying one on credit terms. This is the world that writer Robert Venditti and artist Brett Weldele have created. On the surface, it seems like an ideal world – once dangerous jobs are now no riskier than doing a crossword puzzle; sexually transmitted diseases no longer bar us from experimenting as we please. Even vanity is swerved – one’s surrogate can be specifically ordered to represent an idealized image of oneself.

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For many comics buffs, the news that the creator of Babylon 5 has taken on a new challenge might be old news. But for readers and filmgoers who connect his name to The Changeling, or the upcoming Ninja Assassin, knowing that Straczynski, who prefers to go by Joe, is writing team-ups in The Brave & The Bold might just persuade the, to check the book out.

Joe’s writing debuts in The Brave and the Bold #27, on stands now, on a tale entitled Death of a H.E.R.O. Besides the Caped Crusader, the main characters are Robby Reed, a teen-ager who found a mysterious dial that allows him to be a unique superhero by simply dialling the letters H-E-R-O and to return to normal by reversing the process, and an unemployed, down on his luck street thug named Travis Milton.

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When Donald E. Westlake created the criminal force of nature he called Parker, he chose to publish it under a pseudonym that was singularly appropriate, Richard Stark. If there’s a single work that could describe Parker, it would be Stark. Richard Stark’s The Hunter is the first book in the series that Westlake wrote, and, until now, he had never allowed an adaptation to use the Parker name. That tells you how highly he regarded the work of Darwyn Cooke on this first adaptation [Cooke hopes to adapt all of the Parker novels to the graphic novel form].

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