Good Thursday Morning! Now that we’ve gotten over hump day, it’s smooth sailing to the weekend. If only we could get some sunshine here in New York, and do away with all this freaking rain.

So what’s the 411?

- NY Magazine has the first 8 pages from Bayou, a web-comic series by by writer and artist Jeremy Love, just published in book form by Zuda Comics/DC, described as a fairytale about 2 young girls, one white, one black, who are friends in the Jim Crow South, until one betrays the other. NY Magazine calls it “a spooky, weird, and audacious, clever… and entertaining fable that will surprise you with its dirty magic.” – via VULTURE

UPDATE: as Qadree points out below, you can actually read the entire thing online via the publisher’s website. CLICK HERE to do so, after you’ve read the rest of the round-up below…

- Actor Michael Kenneth Williams, best known as gay stick-up artist Omar Little from HBO’s The Wire, returns to the cable channel as the newest cast member of director Martin Scorsese’s drama pilot Boardwalk Empire – via EURWEB

- Yes, there really are working black writers in the industry, ya know. USA Today profiles African American author Attica Locke’s new novel, set in 1981, about a young black attorney who gets entangled in a murder case after he rescues a white woman from the waters of a Houston bayou. It’s titled Black Water Rising. If Attica Locke’s name is unfamiliar to you – she has written movie scripts for Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney, Twentieth Century Fox and Jerry Bruckheimer Films, as well as television pilots for HBO, Dreamworks and Silver Pictures. She was a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmaker’s Lab and most recently completed an adaptation of Stephen Carter’s The Emperor of Ocean Park. She is currently at work on an HBO miniseries about the civil rights movement, based on the writings of historian Taylor Branch – via USATODAY

- Forbes magazine’s recently unveiled list of the highest earning actors in the industry, from June 2008 to June 2009 includes, Will Smith in 3rd place earning $50 million total, for Hancock and Seven Pounds; in fourth is Eddie Murphy, pocketing $40 million, from the box office stinker Meet Dave. Wow! 20th Century Fox could not have been pleased, considering the film grossed just over $50 million WORLDWIDE! And lastly, Denzel Washington earned $20 million. I’m guessing for Pelham 123, because he wasn’t in anything last year – via FORBES

- “At the very least, even if the film deifies Mandela in as two-dimensional a fashion as Carlin does, it should provide Morgan Freeman with a solid, charisma-driven bid at Oscar glory. Of greater concern is the book’s decidedly shallow, and borderline condescending, characterization of Pienaar, incidentally a law graduate and currently a successful businessman, as a kind of simple, gentle-giant type – I was especially irked when Carlin describes him as a man “for whom big words like ‘nation-building’ carried little meaning.” With such bland raw material, I can only hope Matt Damon manages to convey a little more going on inside the man.” One South African who has read both the script for Clint Eastwood’s upcoming Invictus, as well as the novel on which it was based, analyzes both, and seems unimpressed with what the final film could look like – via INCONTENTION

- Eddie Murphy said he once turned down a request from James Brown to play the Godfather of Soul in a big screen biopic because he felt Wesley Snipes was better suited for the job – via EURWEB

- Did you know E.T. had a blog? – via WHAT IF ET WAS ONE OF US (thanks to reader Bethann for the tip)

- The end of ideas… a 4th Mission: Impossible movie is in the works, and wunderkind producer/director JJ Abrams will Produce – via /FILM

- Steven Soderbergh’s two-part high-def “red” digital Che will get the Criterion Collection treatment. Coolio! – via THE PLAYLIST

- The distribution arm of Senator has effectively closed its doors. Another independent distribution company bites the dust. How many does that make it thus far? Almost all of them right? Even The Weinstein Company and Lionsgate are facing some financial difficulties – via THE WRAP

- RushmoreDrive, the search engine aimed at the black community, is being shut down. No surprise. It really wasn’t necessary and I suspected that it wouldn’t survive. But how about this – the company notified its 17 employees on Monday of the impending shut down, which will happen, tomorrow, Friday. So, they were given about 4 days notice. Good luck folks! – via HUFFPO

- Mos Def re-issued his challenge to battle Jay-Z and/or Kanye West in a five-on-five battle royal. This intriguing challenge would take place in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans in December, with a $10,000,000 pot ($5,000,000 of it going to charity). Big money! The proposed undercard will include a Marching Band battle featuring Morgan State vs. Grambling, a DJ Battle between Kid Capri vs. Biz Markie, a breaking crew battle featuring Korea vs. France, and a battle of the beats between Kanye West and Swizz Beatz. The main even would culminate with the 5-on-5 battle with Captain Mos and his team of Jay Electronica, Nas, Black Thought of The Roots, and MF Doom. Either Jay-Z or Kanye West would captain a team of four other emcees with the proceeds going to charity – via THE SOURCE

- And speaking of big money, director Michael Bay pocketed about $75 million for his work on the first Transformers movie, and is poised to make even more with the upcoming sequel. Damn! – via LATIMES

And finally, here’s video of a saxophone-wielding robot programmed to play (and doing a damn good job) John Coltrane’s seminal jazz recording Giant Steps from the 1959 album of the same name, in a moment that will later be cited as the beginning of the Great Robot Rebellion )

That’s al for now folks!