When I began the task of playing catch-up on pop culture, one of the names I was determined to investigate deeper was none other than Alan Moore; legendary comic scribe, self-proclaimed wizard and all around “don’t get too close to him” guy. I’ve read most of his more popular stories numerous times over the years (Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke and the classic “For the Man Who Has Everything…” story in Superman Annual 11, to name a few); but now it was time for something new. Well…new to me, at least.

My first choice was pretty simple actually, for when I was a wide-eyed 9 year old I had somehow gotten my hands on a couple of his Saga of the Swamp Thing issues. I remember absolutely nothing about the story, probably because at that age his style of writing may as well have been written in Arabic to a child. I only remember the images of grotesque beings prancing around in a horrifying setting.

Apparently that was enough for me, as I didn’t continue on with the series at that time. Almost thirty years later I’m pretty sure I can handle whatever Mr. Moore can throw at me, so I added the recent hardcover collections of his run to my library, waiting for the day when I could jump back into it.

Y: The Last Man is one of the great comic book stories of the early 21st century. It details the adventures of Yorick Brown, the last man in a world where all of the males in every species were wiped out all in one terrifying moment.

What made Brian K. Vaughan’s masterwork so good was his characters. The women in this post-man world were complex, well-rounded and often expertly crafted. Everyone had a motivation and they all felt natural for this hyper-real situation they found themselves.

The story has been floating around Hollywood for quite some time, but can never seem to find the proper traction to move forward. So leave it to the internet to fill a void while the studios twiddle their thumbs.

Y: The Last Man Rising is a fan made film that sets up, loosely, the world of Y. It acts almost as a pilot, setting up several aspects of the larger story as opposed to telling a single Y tale. The production is rather impressive for a fan project, and most of the cast seems to channel their characters extremely well.

Check out the full fan film after the jump.

At least with this rather surprising news it’s not a case of another creative team making a prequel to a classic graphic novel. Before Watchmen, we’re looking at you.

This time at least the guy who started it all is back and ready to tell another part of the story. To what story am I referring? Well, as you might have heard, celebrated author Neil Gaiman has decided to return to the world he made famous and tell a new part of The Sandman story.

That’s right, Gaiman will collaborate with artist J.H. Williams III on a new limited series based on his classic graphic novel The Sandman for Vertigo. Gaiman made the announcement via video during the Vertigo panel at Comic-Con on Thursday.

In the video address, Gaiman said “there was one tale still untold” for The Sandman and with Sandman‘s 25th anniversary coming up, he felt the time was right to revisit it and tell this new story.

The title of the series will be announced later, but look for it to debut sometime in 2013 and be available da-and-date digitally.

There are few long form comic book stories that really feel like a single cohesive whole. It is just hard to maintain total continuity in style and storytelling over more than a half a decade’s worth of single issues.

Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra were able to accomplish that difficult feat with their epic series Y: The Last Man. A tale told over several years and 60 total issues, that details the last male on earth, and his pet monkey. The comic series is one of the great achievements in comic book storytelling, and is ripe for an adaptation.

The problem is that such an large tale needs more than two hours to tell, and that has slowed the adaptation process down considerably. New Line has been reluctant to sign off on a trilogy of films, but they are still very eager to move forward with a single Y: The Last Man film.

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that New Line has brought in two new writers to take a new stab at the adaptation:

Writing duo Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia are in final negotiations to write New Line Cinema’s adaptation of the acclaimed Vertigo comic book… The duo is somewhat new to the feature world but are hot out of the gate – Y is the second studio job in five months after booking Sony’s untitled Zorro origin project — but they have plenty of genre TV credits. Federman and Scaia were writer-producers on Charlie’s Angels, Human Target, Warehouse 13 and Jericho.

Everyone knows that Wednesday is new comic book day. While picking up your new issues consider looking at some of the trade paperbacks and hard covers of past issues and story lines. But which ones should you choose?

That’s why every Tuesday, The Flickcast will recommend a collection of comics that are just as good, if not better, than the issues you are currently buying. Books that deserve to be read, and bought the next time you walk into your local comic book store.

Preacher is The Godfather of comics. Its brazen, over-bearing, and loud tone leave a distinct aftertaste when you finish reading. The characters are mean and hateful. The locations are gritty and gross. Preacher is the sum total of all the dark corners of America combined into a tale of the problems of religion. It is a series that is not for everyone, and will turn some people off of comics forever. However, if someone asked me what my favorite comic book series of all time was, I would be hard pressed to not choose Preacher.

Preacher was a mature and violent comic book series published by Vertigo in 1995. It lasted sixty-six issues as the main characters blasted and hunted their way through America on their quest to find God. Oh, by the way, their quest was not metaphorical; it was literal.