Wed Sep 30, 2009 — by Matthew Weinberger

ComicMix Quick Picks: NY Anime Festival grows, comic sales hold, and Hugh Jackman doesn't stop the show

Get ready for a special "still-recovering-from-fasting-on-Yom-Kippur" edition of ComicMix Quick Picks. Yesterday was pretty busy, and here's a roundup of the stuff we didn't get to:

• New York Anime Festival attendance was up 16 percent from last year. And according to data from this past August, comic sales have held very steady, even through the econopocalypse. Are these signs of a recovering economy, or signs that our kinds of people just can't cut this stuff out of our budgets?
• Popular British football (that's soccer to us heathen Americans) comic strip Striker ended its 24-year run in British newspaper The Sun ended--without telling readers. Hilarity ensues.
  
• Marvel second-in-command Tom Brevoort explains why Alpha Flight seems to be unable to stick around for very long in their own series: "But when you drill down, the core concept of the series is based on geography, which is very limiting -- they're like the Avengers, but in Canada."
• Sam Rockwell, who's playing Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2, dropped some plot SPOILERS in an interview, if that's your thing. We'll say no more.
• Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig stopped a performance of their Broadway show "A Steady Rain" in the middle to chastise-- you guessed it-- someone who forgot to turn off their cell phone. After pissing off Wolverine and James Bond, it's a wonder the guy made it out of the theater alive.
• Heroes ratings continue to disappoint. Who wants to place bets on the exact date and time it gets canceled?
• Columbia Pictures just bought a spec script for a movie called Supermax, about a prison full of people with creepy superpowers. The problem is that they've also been developing Super Max, a vehicle for DC Comics hero Green Arrow, also about a prison for people with powers. Now, the rumor is that even if it gets a name change, the thematic similarities may kill the comic book-flavored movie in favor of the new one. How fair is that?
• Former Terminator Summer Glau has been upgraded from "Dollhouse guest star" to "Dollhouse regular cast." Joss Whedon's been wearing out his rolodex for the show's cast, huh?

What else did we miss? Tell us in the comments.

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