* My latest piece on Marvel’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand is up at Marvel.com–this one’s an interview with writer Robert Aguirre-Sacasa focusing on a look back at the project so far and where it’s headed next.

* There’s lots of good stuff in Tom Spurgeon’s interview with Matt Fraction–the final installment in his Holiday Interview series–but this is probably the juiciest bit:

SPURGEON: One of the more interesting about the art in your Iron Man is Salvador Larocca’s visual references to celebrities–in fact, you’ve worked with a number of strong stylists. Is there any way that you as a writer will respond to or make choices based on stylistic strategies undertaken by an artist with whom you’re working?

FRACTION: I can’t stand that stuff, personally — yanks me out of the story immediately. Not photo referencing, that’s not what bugs me, but using celebrities just… it’s as intrusive as someone standing over your shoulder reading the word balloons with funny voices. Bums me out.

Wow, on the record and everything. But it really does interfere with my enjoyment of the series, which is otherwise quite good. Hmm, Fraction must also love working with Greg Land on Uncanny X-Men, huh?

* Speaking of Spurge, here he reviews early Daredevil and notes how the creators’ uncertainty of what the point of the book was supposed to be gave them a lot of freedom. The funny thing about Daredevil as a character is that most of the great work done with the character, and there’s been a disproportionate amount of that, has been tonally consistent from one creative team to another, so it’s a momentary surprise to recall that it wasn’t always noir and ninjas.

* Don’t know why I’m just getting to this now, but the original Blog@Newsarama crew is back and blogging at Comic Book Resources under the moniker Robot 6. Welcome back!

* And on that note, here’s Robot 6’s Chris Mautner running down Fantagraphics’s Spring/Summer 2009 publishing plans.

* WoW Among the Ruins: Bruce Baugh takes a look at a less-traveled area of World of Warcraft, one that had once been the site of a lot of action, and notes its post-catastrophic ambiance.

* Jog reviews the first issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s supervillain noir Incognito, echoing my sentiments about the comic in two particulars: 1) It feels a bit shopworn, at least at the moment; 2) It’s like Brubaker wanted to see what Wanted would be like if it were written by a good writer.

* Finally, a welcome Real Life Torture Porn update:

We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that.

—CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta. (Via Ezra Klein.)

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