Geoff Johns was born today in 1973 in Michigan where the writer himself admits, it is "damn cold." Like so many of us, Geoff had a passion for the creative (screenwriting, graphic design, storytelling, your basic artist jack-of-all-trades stuff) but he got lucky in Los Angeles when after a phonecall, he became an intern to someone fancy schmancy. This in turn led him to a fruitful career as a contributing writer to DC comics, among others. You’ve probably read a couple of issues of The Flash by Johns, he was responsible for reviving Teen Titans, plus he’s got some fun TV credits sprinkled here and there (Robot Chicken!). We’re glad LA was kind to you Geoff Johns and glad that you have return your karma with some pretty fun storylines. Happy Birthday!
If you have the time next Thursday and you’re in Los Angeles with a little spare change burning a hole in your pocket, you might want to stop by the Profiles in History auction house. They have a Christopher Reeve Superman costume from the first movie, a Winkie uniform from The Wizard of Oz (the Winkie’s were the guards of the Wicked Witch of the West, the ones who sing the song with words that always sounded to me like "Oreos – Oreos – Oreos – Oooh – Oh").
Other iots feature a Batman costume from the 1995 Batman Forever, an alien costume from Alien (1979) and various other Superman ephemera, including transcripts from brainstorming sessions.
In all, there are more than 700 lots. If you’re not in LA and want to bid, you can go online at ebayliveauctions.com or profilesinhistory.com.
While some of us in the New York area are starting off I-CON weekend by listening to live streaming of The Comic Book Novice tonight at 9 PM Eastern (penciller and Dreamchilde Press head honcho James Rodriguez is the guest), we understand that things are actually happening in the rest of the world. I don’t quite believe it, but I’ll take these people’s word for it:
At 5:30 PM today, you can catch cartoonist Keith Knight at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Hey, Michael Davis is black, why wasn’t he invited to this?
Seeing Things: The Art of Jim Woodring opens tomorrow at Seattle’s Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.
In addition to TMNT, the kids movie The Last Mimzy bows today nationwide (Matt Raub reviews it on ComicMix Podcast; scroll down), and Jenna Fischer assures folks "It is a very cute kid’s movie…better than most in the sense that it isn’t cut and paced like a rock video. It is actually sweet and magical and interesting. Oh…and you get to see Rainn’s ass. Well, you see him in his undies bending over at the fridge. Angela and I were giggling like schoolgirls. Were were like, ‘Woah! There is Rainn’s ass on a giant movie screen!’ (I’m sure the boys from The Office will be saying something similar about my ‘ladies’ when we see Blades of Glory next week.)" Glenn can have his Sopranos; I’m just loving that The Office actors all seem so much like their characters. Cool Office cast photos accompany that blog entry, by the way.
Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing (who’s just discoveredAmerican Born Chinese, so congrats Gene Yang, you’ve been BoingBoinged!) mentions that artists Rob Sato (Burying Sandwiches) and Ako Castuera have a new show going up at the LA comic shop The Secret Headquarters starting next Friday. By the way, Cory also mentions he’s signed a deal with IDW to sell comics based on his stories, and had his agent write a clause spelling out that "those stories are already under Creative Commons Attribution/ShareAlike/Noncommercial licenses that allow fans to make non-commercial comics," so it’s whatever the opposite of an "exclusive" is. ("Loss leader," perhaps?)
And although it’s slightly past rather than upcoming, I wanted to mention Trina Robbins’ astounding news that "comics are alive and well in Scandinavia, and women are drawing them," as she reviews her lecture tour through Malmo, Copenhagen and Stockholm. Brr, Scandinavia in March, glad someone looks happy in those photos!
Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing (who’s 
