Zack Whedon's one-shot Dr. Horrible comic hits stands on November 18th and will delve into Billy's childhood, his first meeting with Captain Hammer, and his drive to join the Evil League of Evil. Whedon told Newsarama that Penny will make a small appearance, though sadly there will be no singing.

The full seven-page preview is available at MTV and offers some insight into what drove Billy to become Dr. Horrible.

[via Whedonesque]

There's a lot of potential in the opening of Days Missing, but there's also a nagging feeling that that's all it is: potential. Don't get me wrong; the issue reads and looks - especially looks, with some amazing art from Frazer Irving - fine, and there's enough of a plot in there to make it a fulfilling "done-in-one" story. What there isn't, however, is enough of an introduction to the overall concept of the series, and that lack of introduction, of explanation, renders the climax of the issue as frustratingly confusing as it is tantalizingly mysterious.

What we do get, however, is a story told from the point of view of a man whose name may or may not be Steward - who is both immortal and most likely not a man at all, but some kind of supernatural force or entity that appears in moments of evolutionary importance - that isn't really about Steward but about the way that various people react to a viral outbreak that could destroy the world, and the price paid for a cure. As befits the Roddenberry name, there's a certain Star Trek episode quality about it, with moral dilemmas solved in part by deus ex machinas in order to complete everything in the allotted running time, but with enough implied or left unresolved to leave some food for thought, as well.

In some ways, I wish there had been more space available for the story, which could've easily filled another issue of the same length. As good as it is, Phil Hester's writing - Steward's purple prose narration (even though it's fitting, given the probable pretension of an immortal) aside - feels almost cramped and rushed at times, and I would've liked to have seen more time spent with the doctors and scientists looking for a cure in order to give the resolution some more weight. The speed, and style, of the writing are very reminiscent of an hour-long TV drama: Slick, smart but full of people telling you that everything's important instead of you feeling that for yourself.

It's a good thing, then, that Irving's art is so strong; what Hester doesn't have time for, Irving is able to at least hint at, whether it's with the acting of the characters or his impressive (and atmospheric) color choices. The art raises the writing amazingly in parts, giving flashbacks an epic sweep that is otherwise missing, and making Steward an unworldly outsider instead of just the surly emo narrator he could've been in other hands. In a book that's well-done and professional, Irving is easily the MVP.

Overall, it's a nice, if frustrating, opener. If this was a television show, without a month between episodes or a $3.99 price tag each time, I'd be much more enthusiastic, but as it is...? I'll definitely be picking up the second issue, but doing so hoping for more than I got this time around - More to Steward's role in the grand scheme of things, definitely, but also more to the meat of the story that he'll have stepped into, as well. An apocalyptically bad plague is a good start, but what else is there?

Days Missing #1 is released to comic book stores today. Here's a preview of what you'll see in the opening:

Ahead of tomorrow's Free Comic Book Day, iVerse have just released a free Comic Shop Locator for iPhone application (which connects to the much-referenced Comic Shop Locator database), allowing you to find the closest store to your current location at the touch of a screen. The app is free, and available from the iTunes store now.

Cannon created “Blotchmen” for Scott McCloud’s 24 Hour Comics Day, conceiving, writing, and illustrating the book in a single 24-hour period. The comic finds his Rorschach stand-in, Blortshack, on the trail of some favorite children's characters, and he might just be outmatched:

The rest of the comic is available on Cannon's blog.

[via Read Comics]

Archie Goodwin adapted the film to a graphic novel for Marvel in 1982:

The magazine Crazy, a competitor of Mad and Cracked even created a parody:

More of the comics here:

Images from Moebius, Long Tomorrow [Sci-Fi-O-Rama]

Blade Runner: A Marvel Super Special [BRMovie.com]

I'm all for the Werewolf ladies turning into a comic but why stop there? These crazy gals and their werewolf feeding Nazi den of booze and singing deserve more screen time. Who doesn't want to see the naked masked Nazi ladies of death camp 13, let alone the crazy experimentation that went into making a "pure" wolf person.

But while were looking back at the Grindhouse fake trailers I think we need to note Eli Roth's Thanksgiving clip as well. "You'll come home from the holidays in a body bag," is by far one of the top all time tag lines in horror movies. What petition do I need to start to get that film made?

NSFW trailers for Nazi Werewolves, Don't and Thanksgiving.

[Myspace]

Crappiest speculations about futuristic security threats to the United States, according to the U.S. Government: Watch out kids, because the melting arctic ice sheet could lead to trouble for U.S. national security! Luckily, the military has a solution, and it's totally cyber.

Lefty videoblogger Jimmy Burns is doing a video podcast about the evils of corporate American when the Starbucks behind him explodes. A cable news channel scoops up his feed and stars airing it live, and he instantly becomes a global celebrity. Global News sends him to Iraq, where soldiers are searching for President McCain's son. Burns struggles with becoming a whore for the mainstream media and the U.S. army. But then a new radical Islamic terrorist group starts using Burns for its own ends as well.

(Weirdly enough, the McCain for President campaign is advertising on the Shooting War site, even though the comic depicts a John McCain presidency as an unparalleled catastrophe. I kept wondering if this was a joke, but it isn't.)

Shooting War reads like writer Anthony Lappé's love letter to old-school broadcast news, which no longer exists in 2011. Lappé runs the lefty Guerilla News Network and worked on a Showtime documentary about Iraq. In the graphic novel, the cable news networks are shallow and evil, and Dan Rather haunts the book like the ghost of responsible journalism. (The Shooting War website says the book version features, "by popular demand, more Dan Rather than you can shake a dead armadillo at.") So somebody must have really liked the Dan Rather cameos, which now seem a bit excessive and hagio(porno)graphic.

The Iraq war, meanwhile, has spawned terrorist attacks all over the U.S. and Europe, plus a suitcase nuke in India. The comic's worst case scenario presumes super-competent terrorists, but still seems freakily plausible.

One major improvement in Shooting War's book version is Dan Goldman's art, which no longer has to fit into a series of oblong rectangles. The mixture of photos, painting and drawing looks a lot more natural on the page, and the edits give more of a movie-like flow to the narrative.

The main weakness of Shooting War is its preachiness. You'll want to skim some of the long speeches that Lappé puts into the mouths of his characters. In particular, the leader of terrorist group Sword of Mohammed spews out a mixture of ideology and infodump that fills a few pages with word balloons. It feels like the mistake of a rookie graphic novel writer, who's more used to writing pure prose.

But Shooting War is lurid and clever enough that you almost forget it's a political screed written by a documentary film-maker. You can just enjoy the dystopian future porn and ignore the political messages, although you may find yourself thinking about them later.