[Editor's note: Grant Morrison provided the below commentary for the bonus material in the new BATMAN AND ROBIN MUST DIE! Hardcover - for more behind-the-scenes material from Grant, Frank Quitely and Frazer Irving, be sure to check out the book, now in stores!]

As regular readers of these collected editions will know, I sketch out pretty much all of the cover roughs for this series in my notebook at the start of the creative process. Here are the last of those scribbled ideas, alongside the polished, professional finished versions by Frank Quitely.

Issue Thirteen

Back in BATMAN #428, in 1988, the Joker had famously used a crowbar to beat Jason Todd, the unlucky second Robin, to within an inch of his life before blowing him with a bomb. As is the way of comic book characters, Jason Todd eventually made it back from the dead many years later (and even made an appearance as the Red Hood in this very series), but I wanted to see the new Robin redress the balance in his own inimitable way — hence this image of a grinning, unrepentant Joker taking his skull fractures with a smile

They say you you can't go back, the past is the past. It isn't always true. When Azzarello and I found out we had the opportunity to add some additional material to our Lex Luthor story, it was like someone gave us the keys to the DeLorean. Although I think we can both look back at Luthor with some pride, there's also a bit of unfinished business there. That is, until now.

October sees the release of the NEW AND IMPROVED Luthor. A new hardcover collection of the original mini-series with all new story pages (half an issue's worth) and bonus sketchbook material. Also, when I say new story material, I really mean it. We've actually added new sequences throughout the book as well as adding pieces to existing scenes and re-shuffling the position of others.

This 'new cut' really enhances the original story and broadens it. For example, here are a couple pages we added to issue three, sans coloring and lettering.

In the original version, the fight between Superman and Batman was cut off towards the end. These two new pages continue the last page of the fight and allow readers to really find out what Superman was after.

What you see here is just the beginning. Wrapped in a new cover, this book is our time machine. Jump in with us.

Creepy, huh?

It's almost the weekend, so let's give you a few things to read to make the work day go by a tad faster, shall we?

• THE NEW YORK TIMES has unveiled it's latest Graphic Novel Best Seller list, and GREEN LANTERN: RAGE OF THE RED LANTERNS is sitting pretty atop the chart. Other notables: FINAL CRISIS, THE KILLING JOKE, BATMAN R.I.P., JOKER and ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER.

• USA TODAY has the second chapter of WEDNESDAY COMICS' SUPERMAN strip. If you haven't read it yet, it's definitely worth the click.

• Neil Gaiman was on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" to chat up WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CAPED CRUSADER.

• NEWSARAMA's got the latest 20 Questions with Dan DiDio, covering a plethora of topics, including BLACKEST NIGHT, WEDNESDAY COMICS and some surprises.

• The BLACKEST NIGHT goodness continues, with IGN unveiling preview pages from BLACKEST NIGHT: TALES OF THE CORPS #2, CBR reviewed the first issue of the series and MTV's SPLASH PAGE blog gives the book some love.