As we head towards Valentine's Day, ComicsAlliance is offering up a daily tribute to love, as depicted in the somewhat dubious world of Romance Comics! Today's entry: Our Love Story #28's "Alone in the Dark!"

The Brooklyn comics studio Pizza Island recently disbanded, with its creators -- Kate Beaton, Domitille Collardey, Sarah Glidden, Meredith Gran, Lisa Hanawalt, Deana Sobel and Julia Wertz -- parting amicably and scattering as far as Canada and France. One of Pizza Island's most prominent members, Kate Beaton of Hark! A Vagrant, also announced that she will be slowing the pace of her webcomic updates in order to focus on unspecified long-term projects, and mentioned opportunities ranging "from children's books to television work."

ComicsAlliance spoke to each creator in the former all-female comics super-group about where they're headed next, what made the studio different from the often solitary work experience of comics art, and what they'll miss most about Pizza Island.

New images of upcoming Marvel Select action figures and Minimates from The Avengers movie were revealed this afternoon during a live chat at Marvel.com, with Diamond Select Toys' Zach Oat on hand to answer collector questions. Coming in April, Loki, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Nick Fury Minimates will roll into Toys"R"Us stores, joining a wider line that includes Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and Hulk. According to Oat, in May "there will also be three figures exclusively at comic shops and specialty stores: two mystery foes and a short-packed Maria Hill figure." DST also revealed a first look at its Marvel Select Hulk figure in the chat, which will join a previously-revealed Hawkeye figure in stores this spring. Get a closer look at all of the upcoming Avengers movie DST offerings after the cut.

A year ago, Periscope Studio members Jeff Parker (Thunderbolts) and webcomics diarist Erika Moen (DAR) joined forces to bring their Portland-based webcomic Bucko to the Internet. Bucko follows a long, strange week in the life of an unemployed 20-something man nicknamed Bucko, where half the mystery is figuring out what the mystery is. Bucko wakes up hungover and late for an interview in the house of a woman named Gypsy, after failing to score a threesome with her and her roommate. When he finally arrives for interview it doesn't go so well; Bucko rushes into the office bathroom suffering from a bout of post-binge drinking diarrhea, discovers a dead body and must decide whether to evacuate his aching bowels before or after he calls the police.

Though many will devote this coming Sunday to observing the cultural phenomenons of football, expensive commercials, cocktail weenies and processed cheese dip, Marvel has one additional activity planned that Avengers fans may want to add to the list. Coinciding with The Avengers movie commercial set to debut during "The Big Game," Marvel is releasing The Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big Week #1 (of 8) comic on the Marvel Comics app for free. Set for a weekly Tuesday release on the Marvel app starting February 14, the $0.99-per-issue series takes place in the Avengers movieverse and follows the adventures of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (with Agent Phil Coulson in tow for the action as well). Telling the tale are Chris Yost, Eric Pearson and artist Luke Ross. Check out Marvel's three-page preview of the digital series after the jump.

Wednesday might have been Image Comics' actual 20th birthday, but the publisher won't be throwing their party until later in the month, when the Image Expo kicks off at the Oakland Convention Center in downtown Oakland, California for a three-day celebration of the company, its comics, its creators and, according to official Expo PR, "independent creativity in comics" in general. With the full programming slate for the February 24-26 event announced last night, potential attendees can now get a better picture of just what Image Expo is all about.

In all the excitement surrounding Before Watchmen, we'd completely forgotten that DC Comics had already published a new Watchmen comic by creators other than Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It was called Botchmen, and it happened all the way back in 2009, in issue #499 of a magazine called MAD.

Here at ComicsAlliance, we value our readership and are always open to what the masses of Internet readers have to say. That's why every week, Senior Writer Chris Sims puts his comics culture knowledge to the test as he responds to your reader questions!


Q: Why am I so wrong for hating Batman: Year Two? -- @BatIssues

A: No joke, guys: As bad as its reputation might be, Batman: Year Two has a special place in my heart. If I'm honest -- and the Ask Chris column is nothing if not a sacred bastion of truth in an uncaring world -- Year Two's easily in my top ten favorite Batman stories ever, and might even have a shot at cracking the top five. I love that comic.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I love it, but it's also absolutely terrible.

Lego has its share of official plans for Marvel characters starting this spring in preparation for The Avengers movie, especially for the Star-Spangled Avenger, Captain America. ForestFire Films has plans of its own, however, which are considerably less E for Everyone. In their 2:25 minute stop motion animated short, a custom Lego Captain America (armed with weapons from Brickarms) clears through room after room of Nazis with ultra-violent abandon and considerable supersoldier style. The real Captain America might take issue with his custom Lego counterpart's over-the-top approach to wasting bad guys, but he probably wouldn't argue with his efficiency. Also, to lil' Lego Cap's credit, he doesn't seem to take much pleasure in ripping off a dude's arms and beating him with them. Lego war is just hell, you know? See the fan animated Lego Captain America in action after the cut (NSFW if your boss hates modeling clay gore).

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists and/or specific bodies of work, but there's just so much great work on sites like like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and other countless blogs that we've created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the virtually countless pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the digital media landscape. Some of it's new, some of it's old, some of it's created by working professionals, some of it's created by talented fans, and some of it's endearingly stupid. All of it's awesome.

In advance of its full New York Toy Fair reveal, Playmates has shared more from its line of toys based on Nickelodeon's upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles CG animated series at MTV Geek. Joining the several varieties of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael are basic figures of Shredder, a possible Krang, a Foot Clan ninja, April O'Neil and Splinter. There's also another even bigger image of the massive Sewer Lair playset. Of the bunch, the potential Krang/other Utrom figure is probably my favorite due to its new character design. Expanding an evil alien brain dude's tentacles throughout the full limbs of a gun-toting android body is a clever approach to escalating his inherent weirdness. See what you think of these latest looks at the modern TMNT toy line after the jump.