One of the things I love about Image Comics is that of the bigger publishers, they are the ones who will let a smaller creator publish their work and expose it to a wider audience. Now, to be honest, I hadn’t even heard of Li’l Depressed Boy, but it showed up in the Image Previews for this week, and LDB was shown. Something about it spoke to me, so I decided to take the plunge and buy it. I am very glad I did.

The story of Li’l Depressed Boy stars the titular LDB, who just happens to be a ragdoll. You might think that’s an odd choice, but in making the main character a ragdoll, artist Sina Grace can really show his emotional states in a way that just wouldn’t work on a normal human face. The writing and coloring by S. Steven Struble is no slouch either. Li’l Depressed Boy in the space of a few pages seems like a real character to me, someone I can relate to.

The tale itself could be considered a slice-of-life tale of well, a little depressed boy. From the get-go though, our LDB is determined to get out of his funk. I found it rather inspiring that he actually tries to better his station in life rather than wallowing in self-pity. Things are going ok, and then he meets a girl. He immediately seems infatuated with her, and who can blame him?

Anyway it’s a quick meeting, but she leaves an impression on our LDB. He goes on with life, hanging with friends, and meets the girl again at the laundromat. From there, the conversation flows nicely and culminates in a “date” at a concert.  It goes pretty well, culminating in a late-night feast at the local diner.

The story ends when the date does, and I’m unsure of how it’ll play out. Is LDB making a mountain out of a molehill, or is what he feels for her real? I am not sure, but I am really excited to find out. I know my synopsis is a bit light, but this is a story that needs to be experienced firsthand. So much so that I’m going to go over to http://www.lildepressedboy.com and read some more. I suggest you do too. And hey if you like it, throw the creators a few bucks, they deserve it.

Li’l Depressed Boy #1 is on sale now from Image Comics for $2.99.

X-Men: First Class released their first trailer via their Facebook page. Presented without comment, we’ll sound off in the Comments below, as should you.

X-Men: First Class, directed by Matthew Vaughn, is set to open June 3, 2011 and stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Kevin Bacon, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Till, Edi Gathegi, Jason Flemyng, Oliver Platt, Morgan Lily, Zoe Kravitz, and Bill Bilner.

Today is one of those days where you can certainly say “Everything’s Archie”! Hot on the heels of the BSR/Archie/AllPosters contest, we’ve gotten word that Archie Comics is having quite the sale over on their iTunes digital comics app!

In honor of Verizon users finally getting access to Apple’s iPhone, Archie decided it would be a great time to welcome the influx of new users Archie has reduced the price of every comic on the app to an astonishing $.99! While many back issues are already 99 cents on the app, this applies to new releases as well, including the incredible Life With Archie magazine, Sonic the Hedgehog, and possibly best of all, digital trades like The Matchmakers are also 99 cents! And if you’re new to Archie, they do offer 12 free issues to get your toes wet. It’s another part of Archie’s digital initiative that continues to show that they get it. If you’re interested, you’d best get on it soon. The sale ends of Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14th!

If you aren’t a Verizon customer, but still have an iDevice, no worries. This sale applies to anyone who has access to the app. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some digicomics to buy.

Recently, AllPosters.com in conjunction with Archie Comics have released a line of high-quality Giclee prints. We here at BSR have been graciously given the opportunity to give one away to you, the faithful BigShinyRoboteer! All you have to do is leave a comment here, on the forum, or on our Facebook page telling us who your favorite character from Archie Comics is, and why? Keep in mind, you don’t have to limit yourself to Archie & the Gang. If you’re a really big fan of Josie, Li’l Jinx, The Shield, or The Web, pour your heart out! We’ll feature our favorites, and the top pick will get a 30 x 40 Giclee of The Archies pictured below!

Looks pretty good, right? Keep in mind, there are many, many more designs at the site (nearly 200 in all), ranging from classic covers, to modern covers, to pin ups like the one above, and they can all be seen via the portal site which is located here. You can check out a few more samples below, but be sure to get your entries in quickly! The contest ends on Feburary 17th, 2011! The winner will be announced the next day here on BSR. One entry per person, please.

It wasn’t too long ago that hanging out at Kill-tacular-tron’s house on the weekends, drinking beer and playing Guitar Hero was a regular event – but those days are now few and far between. For the last few years Guitar Hero game sales have been dropping dramatically, so I guess it only makes sense that Activision and Blizzard would eventually have to pull the plug, which is exactly what they did yesterday.

Activision Blizzard will close its music-game business division, laying off hundreds of employees, and cancel the Guitar Hero game that was in development for 2011, the publisher said in a conference call Wednesday.

Activision said that the decline of the genre, plus the high cost of licensing music and producing the games, led it to close the business.

“There was nothing that Activision or anybody could have done to save Guitar Hero,” said Jesse Divnich, vice president of analyst services for Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, in an interview with Wired.com. Divnich said that Activision realizes the “opportunity cost” of continuing to make Hero games when it could instead be putting those resources towards more profitable games.

[Wired]

Guitar Hero III was released back in 2007 and in its first month of release they moved 1.5 million units, compare that to last years release, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, which sold just 86,000. This combined with last year’s selling of Harmonix by Viacom has pretty much sealed the fate of this once popular gaming genre.

To call this game genre a “fad” may seem a little harsh, but I doubt it’s too surprising. I personally never owned any of these games because frankly I enjoyed just playing it with my friends, some of which who already had copies, and couldn’t justify the cost for a game I would never play by myself. The last few years, the popularity of Rock Band and Guitar Hero seemed to be on the steady decline, even I noticed it just by the amount of desire to play the games by my friends and I. It was a fun game to play for a while, but eventually the repetetiveness of playing a fake plastic instruments wore on us and we moved on to different games. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even picked up a plastic guitar to knock out some “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in at least a year and a half.

Guitar Hero was the original plastic-guitar game, and I know my friends and I, along with many of you out there have spent many a weekend night playing it with friends and have some pretty fun memories of that. That being said, this news doesn’t really bum me out too much – especially since in my opinion each sequel to the game was just the same with a varied track list that may or may not be that good. Besides, should we ever get the hankering to belt out some Weezer with our friends we all know somebody with the game and all the gear, collecting dust in their gaming room.

So, so long Guitar Hero – we all had a great ride.

Are you sad to see this franchise come to an end? How often do you still play Guitar Hero or Rock Band these days! Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

The official Star Wars website today revealed a photograph that has sent me reeling with intrigue and joy.

After this week’s wrap-up to the Mortis trilogy, what lies beyond has been a bit of a mystery.  Supervising Director Dave Filoni has promised to end on a high note, but the indications of what could be coming are sparse.  My best guess, based on clues given to me by Filoni in an interview, are still an episode based on Predator (possibly with Darth Maul and Savage Opress?)

But we have a sneak peek of next weeks episode:

The episode “The Citadel,” which airs on airing at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT Friday, February 18 on Cartoon Network, features the return of a classic Star Wars character from Episode IV. Long before he held the rank of Grand Moff in charge of Death Star operations, he was a Republic officer in the Clone Wars.

This makes sense.  It’s obvious he was around in this era, and he certainly outranks Vader.  There’s something about what happened between him and Vader in between Episodes III and IV that seems to imply that they’re at least close enough to talk to each other with a modicum of frankness that no other Imperial officer would dare speak to a Dark Lord of the Sith with.

If the beginnings of that relationship can be explored, I’m incredibly interested in seeing it begin.

Here’s a larger look at the image:

Though Jon Favreau brought us two installments of the Iron Man franchise, he’s stepped away for the greener pastures of films like Cowboys and Aliens and Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Marvel is still planning on bringing us more movies.

The hunt has been on for a director to fill in for Favreau and with the May 3, 2013 release date for Iron Man 3 not getting any closer, they need to find someone fast.

The Hollywood Reporter is claiming that Shane Black is being circled to fill in the post.

From their report:

Shane Black is in contention to direct Iron Man 3 for Marvel Studios.

The writer/director has powwowed with Marvel execs about his take on the third installment in the blockbuster franchise. As of now he is being considered for the directing job, but the assumption is that if he gets the gig, he would also write a draft.

Insiders said that Black’s involvement is far from a sure thing, and that other filmmakers were being looked at.

You’ll remember Shane Black for writing the still dynamite script for the first Lethal Weapon movie and writing and directing the incredible Robert Downey, Jr. film Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang. He has a rapport with the actor who is Iron Man and he is a great screenwriter and has already proven himself capable of handling the tone that Jon Favreau set in the first two films and, I think, he’s able to even amp it up exponentially.

He’s a fantastic writer, his directing work has been fun to watch, and as long as Marvel didn’t get too far in the way, this could be just the jolt in the arm that Iron Man 3 needs to remind people that there is life after an Avengers movie.

Other filmmakers are up for the part, though. Who do you guys think would be the perfect director for the Iron Man gig? Or is Shane Black a great choice?

Have you ever thought to yourself, “What is this Doctor Who show all about, anyway?” Well, thanks to the efforts of artist Bob Canada, you can now answer a bit of that truly complex answer with this handy infographic. While, you won’t be able to beat a die-hard Whovian in a trivia contest, you can get an inkling of what the Doctor is all about. With that knowledge, you can dive into the series proper, and not be completely lost!

Be sure to click for bigness, While you do that, I’m going to step into my TARDIS and head over to Bob Canada’s BlogWorld! and check out his other stuff.

A week ago there were some rumors circling about that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was in talks with Christopher Nolan to have a role in The Dark Knight Rises, and now there is a rumor go around regarding exactly who that character may be. Accoring to an anonymous tipster over at Comic Book Movie:

Well he has signed on to the film in a villainous role previously undisclosed until now. Levitt will be portraying Alberto Falcone aka the Holiday Killer. He is the estranged son of former mob boss Carmine Falcone (portrayed by Tom Wilkinson in Batman Begins) who returns to Gotham to take over the underworld once fiercly ruled by his father before the arrival of Batman.

I do know that Nolan wants to complete his Batman story with this film, and it would make sense for some things to come full circle like this. I could see JGL as a great up and coming mobster type-villain with some personal vendettas to go with it. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, but I kind of like this idea.

Do you like the idea of this role for Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Do you like the idea of this character? Sound off in the comments below!

So, late last night we ran a story about possible cast appearances during principle photography of The Avengers in New York City. (You can read the original report here.)

The press release excerpt we were sent is as follows:

S.H.I.E.L.D. invites you to join the AVENGERS initiative

Meet the cast of S.H.I.E.L.D. and join the Avengers initiative! Marvel Studios to announce an S.H.I.E.L.D. Assembly in New York City for spring 2011. During principal filming, S.H.I.E.L.D. will be out in full force in NYC to recruit and find new members. Cast members on hand include Samuel L. Jackson (Director Nick Fury), Clark Gregg (Agent Phil Coulson), Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill) and Kevin Pennington (Agent Wendell Vaughn). Fans will get the chance to meet the stars and get their photograph taken with them at the event.

The source is untested and we haven’t heard anything first hand about the report since we printed it.

But we’ve received an alarming amount of mail about it. We’ve received a few independent confirmations that this press release did come out, though we still haven’t seen anything first hand. According to these additional sources, the press release was sent with confidentiality agreements and there were intimated threats that if the news leaked the events would be cancelled since it was difficult enough to get Samuel L. Jackson to agree to these public appearances.

It was also speculated (and it makes sense) that the excerpt of the press release that we were given was not verbatim from the actual release. The source put the details of the event in his own words in order to further separate the original from him so that he might not be identified. Those that called out the release because of its wording had cause to.

Another bit of information left out of the version we received is that another event like this was planned with the cast for Comic-Con.

There has been no word from Marvel about the truth of any of this, and we’ve not been contacted by them in any way. We’d love to hear from them directly about the validity of the story, one way or the other. Had they included us in their press blast in the first place, we would have been bound by any embargo they set for the information and you wouldn’t be reading this from us. If it’s actually true. But we haven’t heard from them one way or the other, before or after the fact.

So, who knows? But we have been contacted by a number of other people reporting that they got the same initial press release email.

I’d like to hear from you guys your take on all of this. And do you think it would be smart of Marvel to cancel the event if this information was accurate but was leaked prematurely?

UPDATE: We’ve reached out to Marvel for comment. When we get one, we’ll let you know.