Some Assorted Nerd Stuff

The delay can mostly be blamed on Twitter, Tumblr and my other P-J blog.

But whereas I used to post here in advance of my monthly "Nerding Out" column, this post today is a follow-up of sorts.

Nerding Out With Nick Dean published on July 3 in both The Post-Journal and The OBSERVER. You can read the column here.

The first chunk of the column was about IDW's first set of "True Blood" comics.

Now today comes news from the website Comic Book Resources that Charlaine Harris, who authored the "Sookie Stackhouse" books on which the HBO show is based, has a new project in the works:

From CBR:

Charlaine Harris, author of the “Sookie Stackhouse” novels on which HBO’s "True Blood" is based, says that after she finishes the last two “Sookie” books, she plans to work on a graphic novel with Christopher Golden.

Harris had mentioned wanting to do a novel called Cemetery Girl back in 2009, about “a girl raised by ghosts in a cemetery,” but put it on hold when she found out the plot was similar to Neil Gaiman’s "The Graveyard Book."

Based on the description in the news report, it sounds like the story has been tweaked, as it says the graphic novel “centers on a woman who finds herself living in a cemetery with no memory of her past but a clear sense of a mysterious threat hanging over her.”

This isn’t the first time Harris’ characters have found their way into comics, as IDW publishes comics based on HBO’s "True Blood," and an adaptation of her "Grave Sight novels" has been published by Dynamite.

DC Relaunch:

Scroll down far enough on that link to my July 3rd "Nerding Out" column and you'll get to a section about the upcoming DC reboot.

To summarize quickly, DC's taking all its separate comic series back to first issues this September. In conjunction with that, a number of comics are getting canceled and a number of new titles are taking their place.

The news has been covered, questioned and criticized thoroughly in recent weeks as DC's rolled out the details of its relaunch.

I rambled on a little bit about the relaunch in the July 3 column. Like I said, there's a lot of commentary and a lot of criticism out there based solely on the details of what's been released by DC, but, on the whole, I guess I'm optimistic.

A lot of the titles I subscribe to ("Batman," "Detective Comics," "Batman and Robin," etc.) really aren't changing that much. I've got a little less to gripe about than fans of some characters like Batman and the J.L.A. But one thing I guess I don't get overall is all this pre-release griping and hyperbole. This relaunch ain't happening 'til September and already people are lamenting its even happening and calling for a return to... to... to what exactly? What's currently going on? I dunno. To be honest, I don't see much difference between what DC's putting out now and what's coming down the pike.

Currently, DC Comics publishes a finite number of monthly superhero titles. Those comics consist of characters in costumes acting out stories authored by writers and illustrated by cartoonists.

Little about that's going to change between now and this September.

Sure, am I disappointed to see a scaling back of the whole "Batman, Inc." thing which saw Dick Grayson protecting Gotham in the cape and cowl? Yeah, but there's still going to be Dick Grayson stories being told. Batman's still got a half-dozen books being printed and, whether

Some links of note:

~Batgirl to keep Oracle backstory in DC relaunch.

~The website The Gutters comments on "Oracle Reboot" in DC relaunch.

~Co-writers J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman talk about their Batwoman series.