So Alan, thank you for speaking with New Comics Day. I understand you have news to announce?

Aye, I have decided to off and sign on with Marvel Entertainment. I read in me tea leaves that the finest way to oppose DC’s corporate stranglehold on the creative rights of our beloved works is to back their largest competitors. Their only competitor, obviously.

You…signed a contract with Marvel? Really? But of course you must know they have an even shadier history in terms of properly handling the rights of their creative roster?

Oh absolutely, which is why this contract has little if anything to do with actual currency- just to keep things clean for myself, my family, and my debtors. Might you recall how Robert Crumb was traded the keys to a villa in France for a couple of his old sketchbooks? Well when I handed over my treatment for the Howard the Duck film reboot I insisted on something comparable. So they gave me Euro-Disney. I’ve since kicked everybody out and moved myself and Melinda in. We’ve changed the locks and are converting it into a fortress, a recording studio, a hippy commune and an art gallery. But the hippies have to tend the lawns. Might even relocate the Burning Man festival there.

Wait wait wait, you are writing a Howard the Duck movie? I don’t understand.

Well you do have the stench of whiskey. I am writing the Howard movie to spite DC. Everything now is to spite DC. If they want to make movies of my characters against my wishes, against my better judgement, then I can take some rubbish like Howard and make it the biggest blockbuster of the decade. Terry Gilliam has already agreed to direct, and Johnny Depp will be voicing the Duck. Talking to Tom Waits about portraying the villainous Doctor Bong now, although I would settle for Nicolas Cage. It will be quite amusingly evocative to produce something that will blow the famed Warner Brothers right out of their own bloody shark-infested pool.

And you’re producing the movie? I thought you were against the unnecessary adaptation of mediums, from one to another.

I am at that, but I’m completely reworking Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck, injecting it with certain CTHULHU mythos attributes that should do well in 3-D. The whole thing is actually set around 1930s AD, with Howard as a traveler from beyond summoned here by L Ron Hubbard and Jack Parsons in a failed sex orgy of rocket science and hallucinogens. Instead of calling forth Crowley’s Moon Girl, they brought Howard. Now the Duck has to travel the world to find the one true antichrist and challenge him to a duel of electric guitars. The entire plot is a subversive reappropriation of the New Testament, which should endear me even more to the bloody Freemasons. The ghost of Ronald Reagan returns in the third act as an avatar of Osiris, determined to reposition the American Star Wars satellite defense system into blasting away the three seats of ultimate power in the modern world- Hollywoodland, the District of Columbia, and Vatican City.  I threw that bit in to spoof how Ozymandias’ plans were bastardized in the Watchmen film. Not that I saw it or anything.

But…what about writing comics?

There will be a spot of that too. I’m slotted to take over all 23 of the various X-men titles later in the year. And I’ll be bringing along some old friends to illustrate- Kevin O’Neill, Mick McMahon, David Lloyd, Eddie Campbell, Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Rick Veitch, Stephen Bissette, John Totleben, Chuck Austin, Bill Sienkiewicz, Al Columbia, Simon Bisley, John Higgins, and Melinda Gebbie. All of the mutants will be fleeing the prejudices of humanity by way of a mass exodus from the Earth and setting up shoppe in Lila Cheney’s Dyson Sphere, to form their own world entirely. Wolverine and a few others will hang around, aided by the Man-Thing (who I’ll explain to be a mutant) to help locate any additional new mutants that come along and shepherd them up to the stars to join the rest. I will also be writing a new Speedball ongoing, as his time in the guise of Penance opens some doors for Objectivism to be explored once more in the Marvel Universe. He’s been the good and he’s been the bad, and now he must take the good and take the bad, take them both and see he has the facts of life. The facts of life in a world of Ultimate Nullifiers and talking ducks and muck-encrusted swamp behemoths from nightmare incarnate. The world will be seen through his eyes in a way like unto William Blake obsessing over his angels and demons in poetry and painting. But these angels and demons are in fact alive, from the blood, sweat and tears of many long decades of suffering blue collar sequential artisans.

This all sounds like complete madness. Will there be variant covers?

Probably. I just want to breathe as much life into Marvel Comics as I can in my remaining years, to blow it up like a word balloon so big and erotically beautiful that nobody will even remember the anti-creative damages inflicted upon the Collective Unconscious by the whims of the suit and tie wearing executives of DC Entertainment. Nobody will remember them at all.

Uhm…thank you again for speaking with New Comics Day, Alan.

Care to sing this article to a close? I heard the tune in a dream. Goes like this…

Panosian, who began as an inker roughly twenty years ago and has since worked over nearly every major line artist and for every major publisher, more recently expanded his style to quite shocking effects, wowing fans and pros alike. Many are looking forward to the upcoming DC title The Unknown Soldier, which will feature his full art exclusively.

However, Panosian has also long been a steady practitioner of the Drink and Draw gatherings, an unofficial social club (co-founded by Panosian with Jeff Johnson and Dave Johnson) in which professional artists meet up at bars around the country to sketch and contest with one another in what has previously always been a rather jovial setting. So it was not too surprising when the popular and friendly artist suggested a mixing of the event with the increasingly successful 24 Hour Comic Book Day, in which creators attempt to independently and completely produce a full comics tale from start to finish in less than a calendar day. The innovative storytellings and creative team-ups that have been born from the challenge have been incredibly viable and vibrant, particularly in building fan followings for individual talents across the spectrum.

Unfortunately, the mixer turned sour towards the halfway point, by which time Scott McCloud (who began 24 Hour CBD with veteran artist Steve Bissette some years prior) had already crossed the threshold of proper public intoxication, and was insistent on inking everyone else’s comic work in the style of Rob Liefeld. Panosian, a one-time studio mate of Liefeld, took offense to the act, though possibly not as much offense had he not then been nearing completion of his fourth or sixth fifth-sized bottle of Jack Daniels. A fight broke out when Joe Quesada allegedly urinated on the shoes of Jimmy Palmiotti, resulting in Amanda Conner throwing a chair at Quesada, missing entirely and instead hitting both McCloud and Mike Norton. Granted, we all know how McCloud gets when he drinks, but the sudden ripped removal of his shirt and loudly professing “McCloud SMASH!” only complicated matters, scaring the royal piss out of the handful of hired personal escorts present, and a small number of middle-aged fanboys who had snuck into the Legion Hall by way of the servers entrance out back. How the fire started is anybody’s guess, but the presence of so many escaped lions and tigers and bears has more obvious roots to the discerning reader.

Hours later, after the police had at last finished with their incessant questioning and taken away enough comic book professionals in handcuffs to really confound the next several issues worth of credits in the Diamond Previews catalogue, Panosian was spotted by New Comics Day reporters sitting on a curb clothed only in a shredded American flag and holding a thermos top full of cheap coffee provided by the local fire department. Rocking back and forth and staring into the smoldering ruins from less than 12 steps away, shaking his head slowly from side to side, Panosian quietly mumbled, “Never again…never again…never again…”

While earlier interviews with director Christopher Nolan, whose effective retelling of the Batman mythos for a more adult audience quickly proved widely successful at the box office with Batman Begins and later The Dark Knight, had the filmmaker assuring fans that he held little interest in rehashing members of Batman’s rogues gallery who had previously been portrayed on film in exchange for lesser known greats such as Ra’s al Ghul, Mr Zsasz, and the Scarecrow. But news of Anne Hathaway taking on the mantle of Catwoman for the movie franchise’s third installment has sparked much enthusiasm in chatrooms and forum boards all over geekdom. So much, in fact, that the heads of all major studios, acting in agreement with the Screen Actors Guild, have announced this afternoon that the American film industry has at last reached the end of the road.

Continued the insider, “Our screenwriters unanimously wish to pursue other creative opportunities- particularly comic books, and our actors all wish to lead quiet, normal lives from here on- maybe cutting an album here or there. Our producers are all of mind to write the great American novel- each and every one. It’s just a feeling of coming full circle, really. Hollywood had a great, great run and made many fine and not so fine products for the global culture to consume. But this was never intended to be an ongoing programme. We are all multi-faceted peoples and we see the coming appearance of Miss Hathaway in a skintight black pleather outfit on the big screen as an excellent opportunity for our industry to leave on top, instead of entering a fat Elvis phase, so to speak, or otherwise becoming irrelevant with the booming vlogosphere and youtube and the like. Honestly, persons today can make movies on their phones now, so our industry with its many legacies of young starlets with calloused knees and old actors keeping the plastic surgeons in business all seem a bit trite now. We all have a plethora of enjoyable memories and certainly do not wish for any more tabloid drama from this decision, but we really just have nothing else left to say.”

“And c’mon- what could possibly top Hathaway in a catsuit?”

Marvel is like a bad boyfriend. The dating sucks, the break-up is messy, none of your friends understood what you had together, and it may have given you a UTI.

Genevieve Kong is an angry woman.  She’s written before.  She will write again.  She would like to be your friend, but she’d rather be your commander in chief.  She is not on this site for dating, romance, or networking.  Her turn-ons are irrelevant to this conversation.  And no, she will not ignore that dick thing you did that time.

You better fix it the fuck right now Joe Quesada or Axel Alonso or whoever the hell makes these sorts of decisions.

You know what I’m talking about.  I’ve given you years to undonkeyshit the Spider-Man world by putting Mary Jane and Peter back in wedded blitz.  Instead, you’ve continued trying to tell the stories you couldn’t tell with a married Peter Parker which, near as I can, could have been told just fine.  Load the script in MS Word then replace every instance of “Carlie’s upset because Peter put himself in danger” with “MJ’s upset that her husband could die”, then change “cop” to “model”.  See how easy it is?

Don’t even get me started on Carlie.  You may think it’s cutesy cool to Mary Sue your daughter, or at least name your cool new character after her, but you’re just setting yourself up for heartache in a couple of years when some writer decides to beat and kill her.  In a couple of years you’re going to have even more in common with Jim Shooter than you do now, so one day when you’re commiserating, ask him what it was like when baby Starbrand killed Debbie the Duck.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying.  I totally get that while you were watching the Mets wash out, your writers screwed up a whole bunch of things, like making Spider-Man a magic demon god or whatever the hell he was supposed to be. I understand that you needed some cheap thrills like unmasking Spider-Man to get USA Today to cover your events.  I’ll even forgive you for trying to shoe-horn character elements every time a filmmaker decides that Mystique should have scales, Xavier likes watching his beefcakes wear leather and Spider-Man should have organic webshooters because the thought of a slacker boy genius was too impossible for Hollywood.

Now you’re stuck with it.  It’s perfectly fine to shit all over the work previous administrations put into building the sandbox you’re watching over, but when you invite someone over to come play and they leave a turd you’re going to keep on playing and pretend it doesn’t stink.

But you’re damn adults in charge of one of the two companies  that somehow managed to alienate hundreds of thousands of readers so badly, a bestseller is going to have a readership half that of Sludge.  Do you remember Sludge?  He’s one of the army of properties suffocating in the Marvel vault. 

Between Marvel and DC, you guys have embarked on a campaign of institutional suicide so successful, an iPad app about birds in space is more of a cultural milestone than anything you’ve put out in the past 20 years.  Yeah I’m counting Origin. 

You want to know how irrelevant you are?  Disney picked you second in their game of IP dodgeball.  They thought a failed comic book company was a better bet than your flabby, uncoordinated, insecure and clumsy organization.  They looked at everything you had to offer and said “I’ll take the one that exploded in a huge public shitstorm.”  Yeah, Crossgen was cheaper than Marvel, but Disney’s the creepy rich guy that just wants you for your body.  He doesn’t care if it costs him a night of fine dining at McDonalds or a diamond necklace.  He just wants to gets his hands on what he wants.

And how do you respond to that?  What does Marvel do when they’ve spent the better part of two decades chasing away everyone that buys their books?  They keep pissing all over the handful of masochists and pain pigs that haven’t had enough of this S&M adventure.  No matter how many times you whip us with Ultimatum or Doomwar or World War Hulks or Deadpool Corps or Chaos War, you scare off a few of the thin-skinned readers.  It takes a hardcore person to come back for more after those beatings.

One More Day?  That was the beating that crossed the line.  That wasn’t a pain-before-pleasure thing like the whole Speedball/Penance storyline.  It was just you being an abusive dick.

You used to apologize.  And even when you didn’t apologize, you’d sometimes do something nice to make me forget.  Hey, let’s forget that we turned Runaways into such a trainwreck they’ve been shelved long-term, but here’s a guest appearance in Avengers Academy.

But OMD?  You won’t even admit you may have made a mistake. You just shrug your shoulders and say “hey, I don’t hear any of these other ladies bitching about it”.

100 percent of all experts, and 95 percent of all non-experts, agree that in every business, everywhere, throughout time, you should try to make your customers happy.  It costs more money to make a new customer than to keep an existing one.

Word of mouth is vital to success but you not only welcome negative feedback, you strive for it and act like pissing fans off was your whole goal.  Do you honestly not see how insulting it is every time you shoe-horn a knee-jerk change onto characters we know and love because you operate on some flawed logic that if you change the comic to match the movie, someone who doesn’t buy your books might be interested?  When you’re in a relationship with someone, they understand that you’re going to grow and change, but don’t expect them to be happy when you tell them you’ve decided to get a tattoo to impress the hot chick that works at Starbucks and don’t dismiss their complaints and concerns as whining or a “sense of entitlement.”

You want to still be friends, or at least not have me tell all my friends about the fucked up shit you’re into?  Then maybe you shouldn’t go on the internet when we break up and tell everyone how happy you are with the new girlfriends, or that we broke up because it’s my time of the month and we’ll be back together as soon as I’m done being hormonal.  I stopped buying your books, but since I’m a girl I doubt my purchases ever mattered to you. 

“It was bad enough that the scientific community officially downgraded Pluto from planetary status a few years ago. Pluto is Yog-Sothoth god dammit! Do they not realize that no power on Earth can downgrade an Elder God’s incarnation in this mortal realm’s dimension? What is the world coming to these days? Respect your freaking Elders!” screamed one angry zit-covered young man in a black trench coat.

Said Boom Studio spokesperson Emily McGuiness on the matter, “We do certainly understand that many fans of Howard Phillips are quite possessive of his work, and rest assured its clearly having endeared itself to so many readers over the years so vividly is precisely why we at Boom actively pursued the licensing to begin with. But c’mon, kids, it’s just fiction.”

At this, one Celtic Frost t-shirt wearing teenage girl with protruding forehead and small, almost entirely nonexistent ears, proceeded to go into a conniption fit, prompting the handful of gawking Boom employees to rush back inside.

“We demand quality scribes well-versed in the CTHULHU MYTHOS, like Warren Ellis or Alan Moore! We demand quality artists who can accurately portray the nightmares From Beyond, half-crazed gentlemen like Simon Bisley or Sam Kieth or Travis Charest…,” said one wild-eyed tall and gaunt old woman in a smart three-piece knit wool suit. “…Heavens to Betsy, if they weren’t published by DC’s Vertigo line somewhere within the first five legendary years of that imprint, then we don’t want them! Except Charest of course, because that boy can draw like the dickens! And we want what Marvel did with those old KISS comics way back- we want the members of the creative teams to incorporate their own blood into the inks for solidarity and sacrifice, and pittance! Anything less is just plain unwholesome!”

“Solidarity and Sacrifice and Pittance! Solidarity and Sacrifice and Pittance! The Black Goat Of The Woods With A Thousand Young! Solidarity and Sacrifice and Pittance!” the odd gathering began chanting in unison, rhythmically increasing in shear volume and collective stench until I worried my mind torn asunder by the very maddening experience and cacophony, prompting this reporter to run for cover himself. But where to run, from the Creeping Thing Inside My Own Shadow? My constitution visibly disheveled, stumbling and oh so alone, my heart beating an arcane song and my own Starry Wisdom now frightfully Unbounded…?

Said Marvel Exec Joe Quesada in the latest Cup of Joe installment for a popular press release blog site, “We know Land has had more than his fair share of accusations in the past regarding the possible source materials for pretty much all of his work, and we were generally willing to look the other way because his books sell really well in the ignorant but horny teenage boy demographic. But this time he just went way too far. I just don’t know if he was flaunting it or if he actually thought nobody would notice this particular time. I tried to skype him but apparently the dude is scared to even own a computer in case he runs into any of the countless forum threads condemning him for being the hack supreme of all hacks. Whatever the case, Greg Land has slapped the esteemed House of Ideas in the face with this blatant show of laziness and unoriginality, and lest I go back on my word and change my mind tomorrow as I generally do I am pulling his contract and tossing it out from my seventh floor window over West 50th street as I speak, the rat bastard!”

New Comics Day succeeded in speaking with the ever-calm Greg Land via carrier pigeon, and the popular artist responded, “Yea I guess I was lazy drawing Terry Austin’s Inker Dinker Doo segment with old-time Timely characters Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal in as background staffers at the Daily Bugle, but it was a HOMAGE- I swear to God it was just a homage. And who says Ben Uhrich does not look like Ziggy Pig anyhow? But all that’s water under the bridge now, BLUE water under the bridge in fact, as I’m stoked to announce that as of this morning BlueWater Productions have signed me on for a new lifetime contract.”

The New Comics Day carrier pigeon then skyped up BlueWater’s new Director of Marketing and Promotions Rob Granito, who replied “Darren Davis and the BlueWater team are freaking ecstatic to score Land and look forward to his tracing photographs of pseudo celebrities for our growing inventory of unauthorized biography books of pseudo celebrities. I already have him slated for a fill-in arc on our Little Monsters of BlueWater book, and then he’s gonna do a king-size special on those three blonde sluts from those cable shows that supposedly get crazy use out of Hugh Hefner’s Viagra supply. Gonna be wicked killer good, just wait and see!”

When asked for a closing statement, Quesada denied the opportunity, except to say that Disney would proudly be returning the fabled Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal characters, alongside Howard the Duck, to the Marvel 616 by way of ongoing supporting roles in the upcoming relaunch of X-Statix this Fall. The new X-Statix will be written by Zeb Wells with art outsourced to some obscure studio house in the Philippines, who will also be handling Land’s former spot in the rotation of artists on the Avenging Spider-Man title. New Comics Day will of course alert our readers to any and all breaking developments in this truly bizarre turn of events.

When asked to respond to the announcement, comic book historian and commentator (and CBLDF member) Sean Kleefeld asked, “Has Neil Gaiman and the rest of the board gone freaking NUTS? As soon as Gail Simone’s people ever get around to despamming that useless Unscrewed site there’s gonna be hell to pay!”

Humanitarian Rick Olney

The indomitable Judge Dredd, by artist Boo Cook

Debuting in the pages of the fan favorite 2000AD (published initially by IPC Magazines and then subsidiary Fleetway Comics) in March of 1977, Judge Dredd is the ongoing saga of a magistrate with brutally succinct philosophy, and set in the fictional Mega-City One, a dystopian future of the eastern coast of the United States. Launching the careers of dozens of vastly talented writers and artists, Judge Dredd has long provided stirring tales that run the gamut from basic action-adventure to pure science fiction to sociopolitical comedy.

In his column of April 1st, Drudge writes, “Obviously, the character of Judge Dredd is nothing less than a parody of our great nation in general and of me specifically- and my political beliefs. My own proud last name is even bastardized into forming the nomenclature of that despicable cartoon! Like with most Libertarians I am arguably either just ashamed or in denial of actually being a Conservative, but none of that matters because I adhere to my interpretation of the Constitution, which is the only interpretation of the Constitution. I am adamantly Pro-Life and Pro-Immigration Reforms. I am for small government and I promote big business. This unauthorized import is clearly an attempt to spoof the values that I and my fellow Libertarians most hold dear. The Cursed Earth is the Bible Belt, people. If no other voice in the media has the balls to tell those slimy Brits to keep their well-written fiction and unintelligible comedic sensibilities to their slimy selves, then as usual AND as expected, let me be the proverbial man in the proverbial room…”
New Comics Day spoke with John Wagner about the growing story, and his thoughts on whether or not the better comics, as with many American industries, should continue to be outsourced to other countries and to foreign talent pools. “With all due respect, this may be an interesting case of Life imitating Art, as our man Dredd clearly saw print back while Mister Drudge was only beginning to wrestle with his private issues of puberty.”

Currently published by Rebellion, 2000AD and Judge Dredd are gathering momentum for the impending film release and are fully aware of the also-impending 200th Anniversary of the War of 1812. Judge Dredd will likely continue his role as singular Judge, Jury, and Executioner in the pages of fiction and in theaters everywhere. Matt Drudge’s articles at the popular political news web-portal The Drudge Report will likely continue their public roles of Judge and Jury alone, as inclusion of the role of Executioner may frightfully inspire Dredd authors to go even further with their artistic confusions of commentary and license.

The new imprint, which was slated to explode onto the scene with the upcoming June release of  The New Ultraverse: Birth of the Real NU, a special collection showing sample pages from upcoming titles Prime (illustrated by David Mack), the Strangers (illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu), Prototype (illustrated by Adi Granov), Mantra (illustrated by Mike Oeming), the Black Knight (illustrated by Mike Deodato), and Rune (illustrated by Alex Maleev), has apparently been scrapped altogether over alleged evidence of wire-tapping by a former Marvel editor currently employed by DC Entertainment, as well as the expected levels of behind the scenes infighting among certain of the primadonna artistes attached to the project.

One of the stars of the NU Ultraverse...PRIME!

Stated Bendis in an exclusive press release, “I wanted to bring back these characters so badly…fans just have no idea the countless late nights I had planning out what I’d do if given the chance to spearhead a relaunch like this. I was ripping off barely watchable shows like Battlestar Galactica for material to reuse in my regular monthlies so that I’d have even more time to obsess over this. I mean, I’m a young enough guy, why do you think I’m so bald? From pulling my hair out over the years constantly reworking my proposal so that Marvel would finally bury the old Malibu contracts once and for all. But now was the last straw, for me. All I wanted was to rebuild the universe in a more realistic way but for Jessica Jones to come to the Ultraverse to raise Lucas Cage’s baby in peace and maybe end up forming a new Ultraforce to stop the NEW Godwheel from happening all over again and referencing any more of Larry Niven’s horrible, blatantly and inexcusably horrible ideas, but Marvel refused any more crossovers. Marvel. Refused. Crossovers. I mean, what the f—?”

Creator of the NU Ultraverse Brian Bendis

“And then, Alex Maleev and David Mack got all confused because they were simultaneously swiping from each other, so Rune and Prime, which are at opposite ideological ends of the spectrum, wound up being panel by panel the exact same damn comic! And Mike Deodato, fast as he is, had turned in pages first which were better than even I could dream, but then he brought in the rest of his studio-mates to finish the line art for the book. So we suddenly had 57 Brazilians working on one issue. And they all wanted the same page rates! I was supposed to be both the editor and art director for the line, but I didn’t have the budget for that crap. Half of them were even trying to recycle whole sequences from the original Ultraverse comics, contrary to what my script was calling for. And don’t get me started on Leinil Yu. I wanted the Strangers to be the real core title, sort of what Ultraforce had only wanted to be but way more urban and gritty, and that rat bastard kept sneaking Howard the Duck into every single page! Every single frigging page! And me with orders from above for no more crossovers! Adi Granov never turned in anything, even though we all began work back before the holidays so that none of the books would be late. Oeming, God love ‘em, completely blew me off to go pitch a Mice Templar screenplay to freaking Scott Rosenberg.”

“Bob Harras. Who could’ve expected he’d be playing sleeper agent? Did all those old Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. scripts go to his head? Is the NU DC such a cesspool they had to send Harras up my ass? Of course, Marvel won’t be pressing charges over his sneakily swiping all of my hard-thought ideas for future use in that NU DC garbage. Marvel won’t do it because that might compromise the sleeper agents they have spying on DC.  Steve Rogers and Bruce Wayne- both died at the same time and both reenacted a second coming at the same time. Coincidence? To paraphrase someone from HBO whose ego is almost as big as mine- – -BULLSHIT! So effective immediately, the entire Ultraverse is simply not gonna happen. But I apologize for pulling a “CB Cebulski” here, and I extend a warm invitation to all of those prospective readers and old time Ultraverse fans alike to instead check out the latest trade paperback collection of my Powers book. Because I’m running out of ideas. I had a lot riding on this, like my retirement, and turtle wax for this chrome-dome just doesn’t come cheap- not when you’re living off what Marvel pays in residuals.”

Bleeding Cool tries shocking new twists to generate controversy. Nothing new though.

Further destroying its remaining journalistic integrity, Bleeding Cool has published a piece of false news indicating that Stephanie Brown’s The Spoiler would be returning via a Kickstarter campaign launched by DC Comics.

In addition to ruining a similar, though objectively better, article on a comparable topic written by New Comics Day and originally planned for publication this week (involving Marvel’s the Runaways, which unlike the Spoiler does in fact have a fan following), the article has set off a firestorm of criticism.

Trent Sprenkle, owner of a Youtube channel visited by threes of his closest friends and family members, was distraught.  “First she doesn’t get her suit in the Batcave, then it’s revealed she’s manipulated into some kind of crazy lesson Batman’s friend wants to teach him, then she’s demoted to Batgirl.  She’s had enough.  This injustice shall not stand.”  Sprenkle is currently holding a fundraising campaign to earn money for a trip to England, which he hopes to conclude with a trip to Johnston’s castle.  “I figure if he’s British or whatever, I’ll just have to go to enough bars and I’ll find him someday.”

In England, what Americans consider a “bar” is referred to as a “pub” or “sleeping place”, while a “bar” is a type of loose meat pie made with generous helpings of tripe and gizzard, soaked in the blood of lost Yankees killed as punishment for the Revolutionary War.  Johnston has been known to enjoy both.

More disconcerting is the possibility that other sites may follow suit and post made-up news.  The trend has already begun, as CNN has posted an article about a “positive economic outlook” for the United States, while Fox News has published a headline where Osama Bin Laden’s name is spelled Usama.