Grim Leaper #1
Written by Kurtis J. Wiebe
Art by Aluisio Santos
Image Comics
Release Date: May 30, 2012
Cover Price: $3.50

The work of Kurtis Wiebe should, by all traditional standards, work against itself. On one hand, Wiebe writes the supernatural with a vivid sense of all the horror and terrors that often come with it. On the other hand, Wiebe has a comedic timing to his writing that is a joy to read all of its own. Those two elements combined, the horrible and the absurd, have typically kept a wide berth from one another for the past few decades in comics. Combining things so brutal and inhuman with the things that force us to crack a smile is not only an uphill battle, it’s a vertical plummet. Wiebe has proven to readers with his work on Peter Panzerfaust, that he is capable of handling this tall double order. Grim Leaper #1 is another fantastic example of Wiebe’s ability to both delight and terrorize his readers.

As part of Amazon’s monthly $5 MP3 album deals for May 2012, the Alice in Chains album Black Gives Way To Blue is on sale for only $5.

If you’d like a physical copy of Black Gives Way To Blue, the CD version is available for $10.

Released in 2009, Black Gives Way to Blue is Alice in Chain’s first studio album since their eponymous third album was released back in 1995. It’s also the first album to feature the band’s new singer/guitarist, William DuVall. Not merely a replacement for the late Layne Staley, DuVall’s vocal style and sound fit right in with the heavy, melodic roots of AIC in full effect on this album.

Browse the main sale page to view all 100 albums on sale for only $5 each in MP3 format through the end of May 2012.

It’s not like we didn’t see this coming, but its still nice to get a confirmation at least. When it was announced that Ben Kingsley was cast as a villain in the Shane Black-directed Iron Man 3, many had speculated that he would be playing the villainous Mandarin. Of course Disney and Marvel denied these rumors and said that the villain would be behind a nefarious plot of releasing a nanobot technology-based virus.

Latino Review has confirmed that Kingsley will actually be the Mandarin, and that there is a power structure that will make the Iron Man 3 story the most complex in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Again Disney and Marvel continue to deny these rumors, but as cameras start to roll today, the site said that can confirm that the Mandarin is indeed in the movie.

For quite some time now it’s been stated pretty matter-of-factly that trilogy-maker The Dark Knight Rises would be the final Batman movie made by director Christopher Nolan and likely the rest of his cast and crew, including star Christian Bale.

This was so sure that it had already been announced that Warner Brothers planned to reboot the franchise after Nolan and company’s departure…and it remains all but guaranteed (the departure; not the reboot) to this very day. But what fun would it be if it were ever that simple? A new quote from Bale himself has opened up just a sliver of “what if?” conversation, and you can see the quote below.

Anne Hathaway has shown that she has the skills to carry a tune at the Academy Awards, but that was just for a mere skit. Now she is taking that skill to Tom Hooper‘s adaptation of the critically acclaimed musical Les Misérables. Based on the Victor Hugo novel of the same name, Universal has released the first trailer for the film, but instead of focusing on the various characters of the musical, the trailer’s focus of attention is on Hathaway as Fantine singing “I Dreamed a Dream.” You can check out the trailer below.

Hugh Jackman plays Jean Valjean and Russell Crowe takes the role of Inspector Javert. The film also stars Amanda Seyfried, Samantha Barks, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen.