Can you find the 56 errors in this painting?
It’s a bad idea to post April Fool’s posts on news sites. The results are usually:
- gullibility, followed by panic, and then embarrassment and mistrust
- a quick laugh from the intelligent readers
- God laughing as your imagined jest becomes reality (iCade, Tauntaun sleeping bags…)
Sometimes, the jest become epic and legendary. The BBC fooled many with a Panorama report on the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest of 1957. In 1997, the Guardian of London printed a special country insert commemorating the tenth anniversary of independence for the small island nation of San Seririffe. Mets fans still remember Sidd Finch, a pitching phenom profiled in Sports Illustrated in 1985. Of course, turnabout is fair play, as Joey Skaggs hosts an annual April Fool’s Day Parade marching down Fifth Avenue from 59th Street to Washington Square, issuing press releases to the media. Comic strip fans may remember the Comic strip switcheroo of 1997, and of course the great Helvetica/Comic Sans search results from Google last year. (And for those of you who still own a Nintendo NES, Google has just announced a Google Maps edition for that popular system!)
So, as tempted as we here at Stately Beat Manor are, we will not be posting any such fictional news stories. (At least, not this year.)
Instead, we ask our erudite readers to propose their own comics-inspired hoaxes below, with the explicit understanding that they are fictional, and are not to be taken seriously. Since this is the first year of the New 52, we suggest our readers imagine the craziest reworking of established DC characters to appear in future issues. For example:
Grant Morrison will present Mxyzptlk as a
15 Comments on Not A Hoax! Not An Imaginary Story!, last added: 4/1/2012Display Comments Add a Comment
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With sales of Action Comics failing to live up to expectations, DC has announced that Rob Liefeld will be taking over the writing chores. Since Liefeld is a bit busy writing Savage Hawkman, Grifter, and Deathstroke (also penciling), as well as writing an upcoming Hawk and Dove series illustrated by Karl Kesel, he will begin his run on Action by “adapting” the scripts that Alan Moore wrote in the 1990s for Liefeld’s Supreme. “It’s surprising how easy it was to map DC characters onto the characters I created for that series,” observes Liefeld. “It’ll be the story of the year!” This storyline will introduce an extensive continuity-bending backstory for the freshly-rebooted New52U. Dave Gibbons will be lettering the first issue of Liefeld’s run.
I heard that Gail Simone will be leaviing Batgirl for her new series, Lois Lane, Superman’s Ex-Girlfriend! The series will harken bqck to 60s Super-family stories where Lois and various supporting cast members findd themselves in increasingly bizarre situations, with the modern twist of sexual kinks playing a central role of the story. Keep an eye out for crossdressing Jimmy Olsen. T+ rating more or less confirmed.
Pick any article from this site:
http://www.newcomicsday.com/ncd/
“The Onion is the New Comics Day of mainstream journalism.”
Joe Mad is the regular penciler of Avenging Spider-man. Oh wait, Marvel already did that one.
DC has acquired the rights to Winnie the Pooh, and will be launching an event series titled “Crisis in the Hundred-Acre Wood?”
Joe Quesada and Axel Alonso fired! John Byrne named new Marvel Editor-In-Chief!
Have you noticed that April 1 starts out fun and becomes increasingly tiresome as the day goes on? Thank God I have my screenplay for It, the Living Colossus to distract me from all that nonsense.
I was honestly about to throw a nerd-rage tantrum over the improper use of string theory until I read on and realized it was a joke. Well played, sir!
My April Fool’s fake news story:
Retailers will begin to order the Adventure Time comic instead of looking puzzled asking why it’s so popular and sells out so fast.
Dean Haspiel gets hired to write & draw stories for his favorite franchise characters and sells a deeply personal creator-owned graphic novel series to a high-profile book publisher.
Steven Grant’s lifelong dream of a Brave and the Bold teamup of Fox and Crow with Metal Men will finally be published, with pencils by Walt Simonson and inks by Archie’s Dan Parent.
The ecstatic Grant remarked, “More than Morrison or Moore, this will revolutionize the superhero.”
(note: Steven Grant really did want to write this particular story in the 1970s. I don’t know if he still holds that dream dear.)
There were a number of big announcements this weekend …
DC comics announced that Rob Liefeld has been let go and new creative teams will take over his current assignments. Dan Didio has also announced that he will no longer be writing comics so he can commit more time to finding new talent for DC.
Marvel announced that they will indeed be rebooting thier universe in September and that after the reboot they will no longer do crossover events.
Marvel & DC also made a joint announcement that since they are trying to promote digital sales they will be offering retailers a free digital account for thier books.
@Dean Haspiel
Dude, yours made me sad! I would love to see all of it come true, though!
Thanks, Chris! Please write your favorite Editor-In-Chief’s, Publishers, and, or course, Congressman.
How about posting an article about a “Mars Attacks!” musical?