RIP Dennis (Denny) O'Neil

Dennis “Denny” O’Neil, best known for writing and editing Batman comic books, died on June 11 of natural causes. He was 81.

O’Neil wrote “Batman,” “Detective Comics” and “Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight” in addition to serving as an editor for DC’s Batman-related comic books from 1986 until 2000. Along with editor Julius Schwartz and artist Neal Adams, O’Neil helped to bring Batman back to his original, more ominous persona after the 1960s “Batman” TV series had a campier take on the superhero.

Teaming up with artist Neal Adams, O’Neil also reinvigorated the characters of Green Arrow and Green Lantern by pairing them up as best friends and “hard-traveling heroes” who traversed the United States together righting wrongs while exploring complex issues of politics and social justice in the 1970s – one of the first comic book runs to tackle these issues in such a way.

MAD Magazine to Cease Publication

Alfred E. Neuman

MAD Magazine will cease publication later this year, according to reports. Blogger Jedidiah Leland reportedly discovered the news after a MAD editor confessed to the magazine's doom in a Facebook group, and shortly thereafter, cartoonist Ruben Bolling seemed to confirm the report on Twitter. Of course, Bolling is not a MAD cartoonist (although he did have work published in it in 2005), so he may have been simply responding to the growing volume of responses to the Leland report.

Per the report, "I just heard from a friend of mine who is in a Facebook group with MAD writer Stan Stinberg that, after the next two issues, MAD will no longer be publishing original material. Instead, it’ll publish reprinted material until it’s subscription responsibilities are fulfilled and then the magazine will cease publication."

Latest Sea-Monkeys News, Web-Site Scam Drama, and New Blog Contributors

Latest Sea-Monkeys® News

Recently the whole Sea-Monkeys® legal drama was seemingly resolved. Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys® was licensed to Dragon-i Toys and re-branded The Original Sea-Monkeys® and Bandai was chosen as the distributor for the United Kingdom meanwhile a new commercial for Original Sea-Monkeys popped up on YouTube.

Bandai named UK distributor of Dragon-i's Original Sea Monkeys

ToyNews reports that Dragon-i Toys has acquired the license for Sea-Monkeys® and that Bandai UK has been named the UK and ROI distributor of range which is being marketed as The Original Sea-Monkeys®. Read the full article here.

Latest Sea-Monkeys® News

It looks like The Sea-Monkeys® Official Website is back up and running, however the Paypal link is gone for now. There is a gofundme page for sending donations for Ms. Yolanda as well.

Now, I don't have anything to do with Transcience, but I would like to let people know a bit about what is going on (as far as I can tell)...

The Battle Over the Sea-Monkey Fortune

Something very wrong is happening in world of Sea-Monkeys® right now. Big Time Toys (aka: Sam Harwell) is trying to wrest the trademark for Sea-Monkeys® away from the Transcience Corp (aka: Yolanda von Braunhut, widow of Sea Monkeys inventor Harold von Braunhut)! Read the article below from the New York Times for more information...

Photo credit: Justine Kurland for The New York Times

I got my Doctorate!

My diploma has arrived from the Crustacean College of Sea-Monkey Knowledge. I am now officially a Doctor of Denizens of the Deep (Dd.D), a bonafied Sea-Monkey Scientist and certified U.F.O’S. (Unknown Forms Of Sealife) Investigator.