Ring a Ding Dong Dandy

• My mind's still recovering from the nostalgia high of seeing The Great Gama throw fire in the eyes of Mike Avery, enabling Gama Singh Jr. to win the PWA Championship last night. And my back, which is still improving but nowhere near ready to be sitting in an uncomfortably hot gymnasium waiting for that moment for three hours, is still recovering from said waiting. Here's some stuff that's been keeping me occupied in the meantime.
  
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  MANY MILES AWAY, MANY MILES AWAY...
  
  Scott O. Brown and Horacio Lalia release the beginning of their sci-fi epic RED ICE at Zuda Comics.
  
  Just weeks later, ice is discovered on Mars.
  
  Coincidence? Or something more?
  
  Who knows?
  
  But if you don't vote for RED ICE and there isn't an alien invasion, you're always going to wonder what COULD'VE happened, if you'd just made with the clicky...
  
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  MAD MEX: BEYOND CHENEYDOME
  
  Die for oil, suckers. Potentially, anyway. Can you imagine how stupid you'd feel getting knifed in the back after waiting around two hours in blazing heat for what amounts to a little over 25% off a gas station trip?
  
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  WHICH ONE DOESN'T BELONG?
  
  The Heroes Con State of the Industry panel, moderated by Tom Spurgeon, featured DC Head Honcho Dan DiDio, Image publisher Erik Larsen, Boom! Studios EiC Mark Waid, and inker and sometimes comic writer Jimmy Palmiotti.
  
  I'm sure this is just a fluke of scheduling and Palmiotti is certainly qualified to comment on the state of the industry, and it's just an interesting coincidence that his name's been making the rounds as a potential successor to DiDio lately. (That last sentence was not intended sarcastically.)
  
  At the same panel, DiDio's quoted as saying, "We have the same characters... There's only so much you can do with them. You've seen it all, you've heard it all."
  
  While I'd say this is both true to an extent--and that it being true to that extent is actually a good thing--it's kind of a stunning admission, coming from a guy responsible for the creative direction of a major comics company.
  
  Of course, the proper strategy to deal with this problem--if problem it actually be--is "simply" to invest in developing new characters that haven't all been seen and heard yet. But that would require a lot of time, energy, and capital, first to create, then to support while the "fans" get over what seems to be an aversion to concepts that aren't comfortably familiar. It's a tricky situation for a guy running DC to be in: why put money behind a book that doesn't feature Superman or Batman, when you can use that money to create a Superman/Batman book that has a built-in audience?
  
  Well, I'm depressed.
  
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  BUTCHERING MARVEL
  
  Chris Butcher, manager of The Beguiling comic shop, finds it...interesting that Marvel's releasing an unusually high number of comics this week, including several high-profile titles (BOTH Bendis Avengers books?), the same week that DC releases the second issue of DC's big 2008 event book, Grant Morrison and JG Jones' FINAL CRISIS.
  
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  GIVE ME MORE
  
  What've you been reading online that I ought to be?
  
  A