The ever-relevant French journal Cahiers du cinéma celebrates its 600th issue this April by taking the form of a "ciné-manga" edited by Takeshi Kitano. The special issue will give one hundred personalities from the realm of world cinema a chance "to imagine a story in four panels". Among the filmmakers who have accepted to play Kitano's game are Olivier Assayas, Arnaud des Pallières, Hong Sang-soo, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Claude Lanzmann, Rithy Panh, Gus van Sant, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Readers of the ciné-manga will also be treated to a lengthy interview with Kitano, conducted by Japanese film critic Shigehiko Hasumi.

•

from TIME:

For a literary critics' darling, JONATHAN LETHEM spends a lot of time pondering guys in capes. His novel, The Fortress of Solitude, set in Brooklyn, N.Y., and various short stories include lovingly written passages on superheroes. Lethem is penning a Marvel comic, Omega the Unknown, due in 2006. "Marvel dared me to put my love on the line," says the author, who is reviving a little-known character from the '70s. Omega is "kind of a meta-superhero," he says, a "bewildered visitor to the Planet Earth" with--yes--a cape.