News updates: 'Y' ends; Q on Colbert; Angouleme; and more!

* The concluding issue of Brian K. Vaughan, now a writer on "Lost," and Pia Guerra’s “Y: The Last Man” hit today, and the comics-loving world has been writing and celebrating this excellent run. Even CNN has gotten in on the act. interesting is a bit in USA Today that talks about the long-in-development movie version with director D.J. Caruso, who wants Shia LeBeouf to play Yorick Brown and envisions a trilogy for the character.

* Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada returned Tuesday to the Colbert Report to talk briefly about the return of Captain America — and to reveal the Colbert is a front-runner for president in the Marvel Universe, and a few other candidates may be ... wait for it ... Skrulls. Watch it here.

* The Angouleme comics festival in France has come and gone again, with an astounding attendance of 220,000! The grand prize went to Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian. Grand prize went to Shaun Tan's "La ou vont nos peres." If you want more, the best coverage was Bart Beaty over at The Comics Reporter.

* Heidi MacDonald over at The Beat has lists of the top comics, publishers, graphic novels and manga titles sold through Diamond for 2007.

* Marvel and EA have terminated a deal that let the games giant develop fighting videogames featuring the comics house’s popular superheroes. According to Gametap.com, the deal was signed in 2004 and only reaped a single game, Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, which was not a hit. A second game was in development and will apparently now not be finished.

* Top Cow says its Pilot Season program has attracted more than 4 million votes. Promotion called for fans to vote on which of a series of one-shots would become a regular series in 2008. The two winners will be announced Feb. 12

* DC will publish a special Spanish-language issue of "Blue Beetle" in April's issue #26, courtesy of writer Jai Nitz.

* Are Vikings the new zombies? Oni is bringing webcomic hit North World to print, and while it’s a Viking story in the same mode as Brian Wood’s recent "Northlanders" or Marvel’s very hot revival of "Thor," I’m getting much the same feeling on this that I did a few years back when zombies began to steal some of vampires’ thunder.

* Heard very little comics related out of Sundance, but over at nearby Tromadance cartoonist Batton Lash of “Supernatural Law” fame interviewed Troma chief Lloyd Kaufman. The results can be found here.

* In case you’re wondering where I vanish to from time to time, it’s to my day job of freelancing. A few recent articles that may be of interest to the folks here include a chat with "Swamp Thing" movie and TV actor Dick Durock over at Metromix.com, a rundown of all things "Hellboy" with Mike Mignola for PWCW, and a look at the DC animated feature “Justice League: New Frontier” in the upcoming issue of Animation Magazine. (It probably won’t be online, so you’ll have to buy a copy when it shows up at your local comics shop.)

* Lastly, here’s a decent stab at doing a webcomic about folks who work at a multiplex called, of course, Multiplex.