Playboy's newest cover girl: Marge Simpson?

Playboy has had brunets, blonds and redheads grace the cover of its monthly magazine. Now it's going blue.

For the first time, Playboy is using a cartoon character, Springfield's own Marge Simpson, as its cover girl.

The November issue will hit the newsstands next Friday, said Jimmy Jellinek, Playboy's editorial director.

"It’s a very, very racy pictorial, with implied nudity at the very least," Jellinek said. "Whether or not you see more ...  well, you’ll have to hit the stands to find out."

The November issue will feature Marge in a five-page pictorial, as well as a two-page pullout poster, he said.

In mid-July, Playboy approached Matt Groening, the creator of "The Simpsons," and the television show's creative team about the prospect of using Marge on the cover, Jellinek said. 

"They were totally on board with the idea," Jellinek said. "This is their 20th anniversary, and they’ve got an episode coming out called 'The Devil Wears Nada,' where Marge will disrobe, so this sort of goes in hand with all that."

Currently Playboy has no plans to give other cartoon women, such as Betty Boop or Wilma Flintstone, a pictorial, Jellinek said.

"We’re going to take it one fictional celebrity at a time," he said.

Homer Simpson was unavailable for comment.

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Photo: Marge Simpson on the cover of the November 2009 issue of Playboy Magazine. Credit: Playboy Enterprises, Inc.

Why Kodachrome faded out

Famous for his photo of a young Afghan girl with stunning green eyes, Steve McCurry has since moved past the Kodachrome film he used to capture the image that graced the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985.

But in a phone interview from Singapore, where he was on assignment, McCurry said "there wasn’t a better form produced on the planet at the time that was better than Kodachrome.”

In addition to its "fresh, wonderful color rendition," the film was fantastic for archiving purposes, he said.

"There’s a longevity to that film which was really unrivaled," he said "I have an archive of 800,000 Kodachrome transparencies which I use on a daily basis in terms of scanning and editing and that sort of thing.”

Declining sales made the film a relic of the past, he said, and Eastman Kodak Co. announced today that it was discontinuing the film after 74 years.

McCurry is nostalgic about the 30 years he used Kodachrome.

“I kind of think of it as an old form now, like somebody you’re never going to see again," he said. "It was a beautiful, wonderful film and I had great success photographing with it. ... But the numbers, the economics just aren’t there. It’s just not viable. It’s a very costly process.”

Like most professional photographers, McCurry has moved on to digital cameras.

"There’s a sense that there are things you can do with digital, a capability that you simply can’t do with film," he said. "There’s much wider range: You can shoot in very, very low light and you can stop action.”

-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo: Steve McCurry with his iconic photograph of the Afghan girl, which he shot on Kodachrome film decades ago. Credit: Mary Altaffer / Associated Press

Lakers gear aplenty, mostly knockoff, along parade route

The Los Angeles Lakers' 15th NBA championship has led to record-setting sales of official team merchandise. It's also resulted in lots of happy bootleggers.

Swarms of vendors selling unlicensed Lakers T-shirts, caps, flags, horns, posters and other merchandise cashed in today as 150,000 fans came out to cheer on the "Lake Show" during their victory parade from the Staples Center to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. 

Many used the city's sidewalks and public benches to hawk their wares.Others set up shop in retail parking lots, trying to attract the surging purple-and-gold-clad crowd.

Stan Davis of Long Beach was among the dozens peddling unauthorized Lakers items in Exposition Park -- a popular spot for bootleggers near the stadium today.

"The Lakers have enough money to pay for half of this parade, I think they're doing just fine," Davis said. "But I'll do anything to make a buck in this economy."

Davis sold T-shirts, at $10 a pop, featuring a graphic of Kobe Bryant on the front. Davis said he knew the merchandise he was selling wasn't officially licensed.

"I'm a delivery driver for a printing company and I got the shirts from a guy I know through that," he said. "This is my first time doing this."

Despite a fairly heavy presence of police surrounding the Coliseum and parade route, Davis said law enforcement officials appeared to be leaving vendors alone.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa estimated Tuesday that the parade would provide a $15-million economic benefit for the city.

-- Andrea Chang, Nathan Olivarez-Giles and Tiffany Hsu

Photos: Vendors try to cash in on Lakers mania. Credit: Andrea Chang / Los Angeles Times

Free Comic Book Day on Saturday

Thousands of free comic books will be given away Saturday at comic book shops across North America and abroad.

Normally, giving away your merchandise is a bad move for a business, especially during a global economic downturn. But Free Comic Book Day, which lands on the first Saturday of May each year, is a bit different.

The industry-wide event, which officially began in 2002, has become a holiday of sorts for both lovers of graphic novels and illustrated literature.

Most comic book shops take part in the event, which over the last few years has spread to shops across the world. But, in case it's been awhile since you've been to your friendly neighborhood comic shop, www.freecomicbookday.com has a store finder online to help you figure out where to get your hands on a free book or two.

This year, special issues of Wolverine, The Savage Dragon, The Avengers, Sonic the Hedgehog, Love and Rockets, Transformers and G.I. Joe and many others will be given out. Also, a 25th anniversary reprint of the first issue of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book that led to the cartoon series and movie craze of the '80s and '90s will be given out as well.

Check out this video of Hugh Jackman, who plays Wolverine in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," which opens today, talking about Free Comic Book Day and fighting illiteracy.

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles