Hi guys – it’s comics update time! Let’s look at some highlights for this week.

Our Ultimate Marvel run continues with Ultimate War (2002) #1-3. This imprint sees some of our favourite superheroes given a new story and a new background, and this week it’s the X-Men’s turn. Magneto threatens the earth, but the X-Men are nowhere to be found – could it be that someone switched sides?…

In Justice League: Generation Lost #17, Max Lord’s plan is coming together and chaos ensues – the United Nation revokes Checkmate’s charter, Captain Atom is wanted to murder, the JLI is viewed as a big joke… And the team face a new enemy, Power Girl. More issues of this cool series coming very soon!

Blood-thirsty orcs are the ones creating havoc in Dungeons & Dragons #2. In the second part of the Shadowplague arc, Adric Fell and his band stumble on a dangerous stand-off and a mysterious shape-changing foe…

Deaf child Nestor Gudfred inexplicably creates utter silence around him, which compels the people near him into each other’s pasts and memories… The Boy Who Made Silence follows Nestor’s coming of age and the consequences that such a gift brings. Winner of the coveted Xeric Grant, this debut issue was originally self-published by internationally exhibited painter Joshua Hagler before landing at AAM Markosia.

And more manga from top publisher TOKYOPOP with Van Von Hunter #1. The forces of evil have returned and the world needs a hero… Enter the legendary Van Von Hunter, the Hunter of Evil…Stuff! Together with his loyal, memory-challenged sidekick, he faces off against the deposed, former ruler of Dikay, who has come back to reclaim his throne!

Here’s the full list:

• Batman Beyond Vol.1 #2 DC Comics
• The Boy Who Made Silence #1 Markosia
• Domo #2 TOKYOPOP
• The Dreaming #11 TOKYOPOP
• Dungeons & Dragons #2 IDW Publishing
• Ex Machina #26 DC Comics
• Fables #41 DC Comics
• Fringe: Tales from the Fringe #3 DC Comics
• Green Lantern Corps Vol.1 #5 DC Comics
• High Moon #12 DC Comics
• I Luv Halloween #10 TOKYOPOP
• JLA #31-34 DC Comics
• Justice League: Generation Lost #17 DC Comics
• Legends of the Dark Crystal #3 TOKYOPOP
• Planetary #25 DC Comics
• Reya #7 Markosia
• Sandman #18 DC Comics
• Star Trek: The Manga #10 TOKYOPOP
• Superman/Batman #45 DC Comics
• Ultimate Fantastic Four (2003) #17-18 Marvel
• Ultimate War (2008) #1-3 Marvel
• Undertown #3 TOKYOPOP
• Van Von Hunter #1 TOKYOPOP
• Wonder Woman Vol.3 #17 DC Comics
• Young Justice Vol.2 #0 DC Comics

Please visit www.playstationcomics.com for prices and to see the whole catalogue.

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Tied for 1: I AM LOVE and I’M STILL HERE

My two favorite movie posters of 2010 – one for one of my favorite films of the year, the other for a film that I didn’t even see (not from lack of desire, though Casey Affleck’s opening weekend fess-up dampened my enthusiasm somewhat), and a perfect pair.

I have a lot of affection for the simple movie poster that places perfectly chosen type on a beautiful film still, but these are something else. For one thing, their images are portraits rather than film stills (Tilda Swinton at her most elegant, Joaquin Phoenix at his most studiously disheveled), and for another, the title treatments are given equal billing to the image, seemingly fighting with it, potentially overwhelming it, ultimately embracing it. It’s nice to see serif and script fonts being used so stylishly in the age of sans-serif minimalism; I only wish I Am Love didn’t have to devote so much real estate to the billing block, something I’m Still Here dispenses with entirely (instead crediting the designers and photographer). I Am Love was designed by The Refinery, I’m Still Here by the great Kellerhouse, who also designed my favorite poster of 2009.

3. BLACK SWAN
The most talked about and blogged about movie posters of the year were a series of four limited edition illustrated teaser screen prints for Black Swan, created by UK designers LaBoca. They are brilliant and there is not much more to say about them other than that I wish I owned a set. This was my favorite of the four, the design that best captures the sinister transformations and malevolent couplings of the film itself.

4. THE EXPENDABLES
Sylvester Stallone’s all-star tough guy revue The Expendables (a left-field favorite of some of the MUBI team) boasted the usual slew of character posters and ensemble posters (IMP Awards has 22 different designs), none of which were anything special, but this beautifully illustrated Mexican poster is in a league of its own.

5-7. THE AMERICAN; AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE and CARLOS
The revenge of monochrome. Though it isn’t perfect, the poster for The American was nevertheless a sight for sore eyes in multiplexes this summer (it was definitely the only one of the posters in my list that I saw on subway platforms). Sam Smith’s similarly retro poster for Carlos takes up the ’60s action movie gauntlet thrown down by The American and comes up with something more authentic, which I’m proud to know Movie Poster of the Week had something to do with. And, included not just because these three posters look so perfect together, the duotone poster for Steven Soderbergh’s Spalding Gray doc And Everything is Going Fine is a masterpiece of simplicity. As a matter of fact, it would also work really well posted next to…

8. FISH TANK
The Australian poster for Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, (another of my favorite films of the year) designed by Jeremy Saunders (he of the Antichrist scissors), is the one Fish Tank poster that gets it right, conveying both Katie Jarvis’s exuberance and her council flat confinement. And Jarvis really looks as if she is floating in a tank of water. (If only Criterion had used Saunders’ design instead of this). It also has one of the best solutions to excessive type (quotes, awards, taglines, credits galore) that I have seen for a while (and dig the shadows which continue the floating effect). Saunders’ design for The Parking Lot Movie can also be seen in the runners-up below.

9. SWEETGRASS
Did I mention my love of perfectly-chosen type on a beautiful film still? This might be the nicest example I saw all year. Come back Helvetica (Neue Ultra Light), all is forgiven.

10. ENTER THE VOID
From minimalism to maximalism. I didn’t truly appreciate this poster until I saw the film, but now I know how perfectly it conveys its garish neon-hued universe and its vertiginous omniscience. I’m not even sure how this poster was made. Is it photography, is it illustration? I also love the multi-font credit block running down the side of the poster (the very same credits which strobe by during the opening of the film itself). For full effect, see it in detail.

Feel free to disagree (what, no Inception?) but below are the rest of my Top 40 movie posters of 2010, in no particular order other than a very deliberate aesthetic one. Happy New Year to all.

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For the last few months we’ve been hard at work putting the finishing touches on our upcoming PSN platformer Tales from Space: About a Blob. I’m very excited to announce that the game’s release is now just weeks away! In North America, the game will be released as a PlayStation Plus exclusive on February 1st, with a general release to follow a week later on February 8th.

Although we can’t announce an official European release date quite yet, the European and Australian versions of the game are just about ready to go and we hope to see them released as close as possible to our North American dates.

First, a quick recap for those of you who may have missed our previous PlayStation Blog postings: Tales from Space: About a Blob is a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer about a race of alien Blobs that land on an Earth-like planet and start eating everything around them. The game features a retro-inspired art style, local co-op gameplay, a monster-movie theme, and a healthy dose of humor.

Collection is a big part of the game. As you make your way through the levels you must find and eat objects that are smaller than you, which causes you to grow. Little by little you get larger and larger, eventually becoming large enough to absorb cars, people, buildings, etc. Collectible points and hard-to-find “Blob friends” are also scattered about the levels. These are used to provide secondary achievement targets to players looking for an extra challenge.

The Blobs have a variety of abilities at their disposal. Basic abilities include jump, absorb, slam,
and “run” (if you can call what a Blob does when it moves fast “running”!). From the start of the game, player Blobs can also spit out objects they’ve already absorbed and then pull them back from a distance using a special “attract” ability. In co-op play you can use the spit/attract abilities to pass objects back and forth between players.

Over the course of the game, the Blobs are given a couple of additional powers. The first of
these, “Magnetic”, allows Blobs to pull toward and/or push away from metal objects. In-game, these objects are outlined with a purple glow. If a Blob uses its magnetic ability near a fixed metal object like a steel wall, it will be pulled toward or pushed away from the wall. Blobs can use this ability to hover in mid-air around certain areas. When used around loose metal objects, the magnetic ability causes these loose objects to fly away from or toward the player.

A second special Blob ability – introduced a bit later in the game – is the “Electric” power. This ability allows Blobs to pull electricity out of special machines (outlined in blue) and push it back into other machines. This can be used to manipulate objects in the environment: Turning moving platforms on and off, for example, or causing platforms to rotate. The electric ability is particularly useful in some of the puzzles found in the second half of the game.

The full game features a healthy amount of content. Each of the game’s seventeen levels contain special speed run and collection achievement targets. We have also included online leaderboards to track top speed run times for each level.

There will be a free trial version of the game from day one. If you decide to give it a try: Grab a friend if you can – co-op is really a lot of fun. I hope you guys have as much fun playing the game as we did making it!

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We’ve got another high-level alert scenario to share with you today.

If you’re not familiar with alerts, they are high action, quick grouping experiences (you can even group with friends if they’re playing as a hero or villain) and as a team embark upon unique in-game missions.

Chris Cao, the Game Director for DC Universe Online, takes us through the Group Combat Alert on Bludhaven in the following video:

DC Universe Online is available exclusively to PS3 and PC and is out now.

See you Metropolis!

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We at SQUARE ENIX are delighted to let you know that the sequel to FINAL FANTASY XIII, FINAL FANTASY XIII-2, is coming next winter.

We have a new story in store that stems from the previous title, a battle system that is evolved from “XIII” – and more…

We’re looking forward to sharing more details with you about this exciting new sequel in the future – in the meantime please check out the game logo and first screenshot!

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