Lots of great stuff all over the internets this past week. Chris Ryall at IDW gives a chat, Jim Shooter plays 20 questions with the fans, young women try to dress as sexy super-heroines, and Trevor Von Eeden is just a really great artist whose work is fun to look at. Let’s roll it out:

CHRIS RYALL’S BAT BOY: Over at Bookgasm, one of my regular stops, Joshua Jabcuga sits down with Chris Ryall at IDW to chat about Donald Westlake, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight and the upcoming Weekly World News Universe of Bat Boy and Ed Anger. Even better, Chris has love for the Twilight fans who ravaged Comic Con International that other industry types should embrace: “I love anything that brings in a wider audience, and ideally, at a show like this, that audience who might only be drawn there by Twilight will then see something else that catches their eye and gets them into comics. I don’t know if that happened this year to any big degree, but the exposure can’t hurt. I certainly see it as a good thing.” More at the link; it’s worth reading the whole thing.

OF COSTUMES AND COSPLAYERS: You know you love it when too many women dress up as Slave Leia from Return of the Jedi. The boys – oh so obviously the boys – at Cinematical have a fun slideshow of some of the costumed women from this year’s Comic Con International. I’d write more, but I know you’ve already clicked the link.

ROBERT MAGUIRE: Along with Robert McGinniss, Robert Maguire was one of the great paperback cover artists in the 1950s and 1960s. He’s got a website and one of the pages features his original photos, shot with professional models posing for a bunch of his covers. This is how it’s done, kids. Added bonus? You get a bunch of hotties in your workspace for the day.

TREVOR VON EEDEN: If you were around in the 1980s then you must certainly remember Von Eeden, a terrific artist who debuted at DC on Black Lightning, which DC editorial at the time saw fit to give to Vince Colletta to ink. He later exploded his style on a limited series called Thriller with writer Robert Loren Fleming. He’s done other great stuff in the years since then. Over at 20th Century Danny Boy, Dan Best has a wonderful appreciation of Von Eeden with lots of great art.

GLENN HAUMAN: That guy over at Comicmix recently got a letter from Cease & Desist, Attorneys At Law on behalf of Imagi, the company responsible for the upcoming Astro Boy movie. Glenn’s response is a textbook example of how these things should be handled.

JIM SHOOTER: The last time I saw Jim Shooter in person, we were having lunch together (name drop much?) at a Tony Roma’s in California. He was in early discussions to come aboard and be the editor-in-chief of the Ultraverse. That deal didn’t happen, he went off and did his own thing, and now the tallest editor in comic books is back in the 4-color business, this time working on revivals of the old Gold Key (later Valiant) Magnus Robot Fighter, Turok Son of Stone, Doctor Solar and Mighty Samson for Dark Horse. You might have seen the announcement somewhere since it made news at Comic Con International this year. The Scoop at Diamond Galleries, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Diamond Comic Distributors no doubt, opened the floor to fan questions and Shooter answered. Good reading.

And finally, over at NPR, Glen Weldon discovers that good art does the heavy lifting in comics. In other news, sky blue, coffee hot, newspapers dying.

See you next time! Happy reading!

[Photo: Slave Girl Leia taken from Leias Metal Bikini, © Lucasfilm]