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Zack Snyder, the director of the upcoming “Man of Steel,” remained tight-lipped about the 2013 Superman film, despite persistent teasing from “The Walking Dead” creator Robert Kirkman during a Q&A Friday night at the Hero Complex Film Festival. The Q&A — at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles — followed a screening of Snyder’s 2004 remake of  “Dawn of the Dead” during a zombie-themed opening night, which also included a highlights reel of “The Walking Dead” Season 2, a screening of “Shaun of the Dead” and a Q&A with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. “I’m only here to ask him about the Superman movie,” Kirkman joked when he was introduced to the festival audience. But Snyder would only say he is in the editing process for the film. “It’s going really good, actually. I’m just cutting right now,” Snyder said. ...

Writer Ales Kot (“Batman”) and artist Riley Rossmo (“Cowboy Ninja Viking,” “Dark Wolverine,” “Debris”) may not advocate violence, but they are attempting to stir up the masses with their graphic novel “Wild Children” — and, yes, the revolution will be televised.  The book, on the surface, is about a group of high school kids who take their peers and teachers hostage because they’re upset with the education system. There’s also drug use (played out through the art as well) and much more to it. The graphic novel will be on shelves on July 11, but Hero Complex caught up with the creative duo for a few questions. HC: Would you say the characters in “Wild Children” are rebellious, or are they, as the title suggests, just wild? AK: Wild Children definitely oppose the traditional 20th century school system that is ...

Stan Lee has canceled his Monday appearance at the 2012 Hero Complex Film Festival, according to Theo Dumont, a spokesman at Lee’s POW Entertainment. Lee, the 89-year-old comic book icon, was the centerpiece of the final night of the festival, which was also to include video-taped greetings from industry peers and Hollywood elite as well as a screening of “X-Men,” the movie that 12 years ago ushered in the new era of superhero cinema. The festival, in its third year, will now end on Sunday night. Lee is distraught and depressed about the recent death of business associate Arthur Lieberman, according to Yuka Kobayashi, another staffer at POW Entertainment. While Lieberman died on May 1, Kobayashi said the collective fatigue of multiple appearances tied to “The Avengers” release have made it necessary for Lee to clear his upcoming schedule. Lee will be appearing Saturday at ...

Find the best and the brightest of the comic book world right here, before the books hit the shelves. Thumb through the gallery above, and click on thumbnails below for larger images. We’ll update the post throughout the month so check back to see this growing gallery of covers and pages from upcoming releases from top publishers. To see more art from recent releases, check out our comic book news section and archive of comics-art galleries. RECENT AND RELATED The ‘master manipulator’ Nick Fury Mark Ruffalo: Hulk has found his family Avengers’: Cobie Smulders up for sequel duty ‘Avengers’ set visit: Whedon’s heroes and humor ‘Avengers’ gallery: Marvel’s heroes assemble HCFF: McDowell and  ‘Clockwork’ on May 19 HCFF: Zombie!: Zack Snyder, Robert Kirkman HCFF: Rainn Wilson unmasks ‘Super’” HCFF: Pixar Sunday: ‘Wall-E,’ “Brave’ preview HCFF: Robocop, reloaded for 25th anniversary HCFF: An Evening with Stan ...

Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise are striking an alliance with The Doctor and his TARDIS-traveling companions in a comic series from IDW –”Star Trek TNG/Doctor Who: Assimilation2.” In the eight-part comic, the two transatlantic titans of television are teaming up against a villain pairing that threatens to destroy the galaxy: Cybermen and the Borg. The series is co-written by Scott and David Tipton (who helmed “Star Trek: Infestation,” which follows a zombie epidemic in a Star Fleet colony) and Tony Lee, the longtime “Doctor Who” writer. Here’s an exclusive first look at J.K. Woodward’s (“Fallen Angel“) cover for issue #4, which hits comic-book shops in August. Also, take a peek at the variant covers by Francesco Francavilla, the Italian artist who was nominated for an Eisner Award for his work on “Black Panther” and “Lone ...

Justice League #9 continues the heroes’ exploration of one another in the New 52 universe as they work together to stop menaces both extraterrestrial and close to home. A new story arc, “The Villain’s Journey,” also welcomes back Jim Lee as the series’ artist after a two-issue hiatus. We’ve got an exclusive preview of the comic (you can quick-click through the pages above or find the links below that lead to larger images). The dynamic between Batman, Superman and Cyborg is played out a bit as they search Arkham Asylum for The Key, a being of some sort who is loose in the criminal stronghold. Cyborg’s ominous mention of being plugged into every computer on Earth, including Batman’s, sounds like there may be some tension brewing. Cover | Variant cover | Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | ...

COSMIC-LEVEL SPOILER ahead, so stop reading if you haven’t seen “The Avengers” — although with $775 million in worldwide box office it’s getting harder to find Marvel fans that haven’t seen director Joss Whedon’s all-star, crowd-pleasing epic. As the credits roll on “The Avengers,” moviegoers see a sinister alien revealed — it’s Thanos, a being obsessed with nihilism and death, eventually falling in love with its embodiment, Mistress Death. The Mad Titan first appeared in Iron Man #55 in 1973 and would become a signature figure in the Marvel Universe’s “cosmic level” sagas — the struggles that brought heroes, monsters, aliens, immortals and gods into conflicts that spilled across space, time and other dimensions. The character was created by artist and writer Jim Starlin, who we caught up with to talk about his Mad Titan getting a Hollywood close-up. HC: When ...

The American comic book doesn’t sell like it did in the 1940s, and the delirious collector speculation and buying-by-the-box sprees of the 1990s are long gone. Game-changing characters aren’t arriving on a monthly basis like they did during the early 1940s and then again in the early 1960s.  The 1980s will be remembered for bringing new ambition with masterpiece graphic novels; the 1930s were even more special because they brought the somewhat essential innovation of a man in tights leaping a tall building in a single bound. So what’s special about this moment in time for comics? Well, here’s one thing: For the first time in history,  it’s actually considered cool if you’re a comic book writer.  That’s a big deal. For decades it was the purgatory of publishing,  a sad refuge for a typewriter jockey who didn’t have a winning ribbon. Now famous people want to be ...

“The Walking Dead” is living large. Editions of the zombie series currently hold three of the top five spots on both the hardcover and paperback graphic novel New York Times bestseller lists, and this July Image Comics will publish the 100th issue. “Sometimes I stop and go, ‘Issue 100 – really?’” the series’ writer Robert Kirkman said this weekend at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Hero Complex lead writer Geoff Boucher led the discussion with Kirkman on USC’s campus Saturday. Kirkman is in the rare position of being the sole writer on a long-lasting comic book while also holding a place in the writing room of the TV show adaptation.  A television script “is like a novel where the script itself is something that’s supposed to be read and be entertaining,” Kirkman said. “Comic book scripts – at least ...

It’s Earth Day and Dark Horse Comics is marking the day by giving away free digital copies of “The Massive,” the new near-future sci-fi tale about life after global calamity from writer Brian Wood (“Northlanders,” “DMZ”) and artist Kristian Donaldson (“Supermarket”). We caught up with Wood, who said this new saga was motivated by something far more insistent than political beliefs — he says it was driven by the searing fear he feels as he sizes up the future awaiting his children. HC: Constructing the calamity scenario and finding the textures of this changed world must have been a key challenge for you — can you talk about approaching that challenge? BW: Coming up with the high concept was easy, essentially just asking myself, “What if everything went to hell all of a sudden?” It was easy to think those thoughts back in 2009 and it ...