ComicMix Podcast #3 is now online!
Our third Podcast is now available for your downloading pleasure.
This time around, Mike Raub reveals how Action Comics ends its 69 year streak, talks about more cool action figures, denotes the cinematic meeting of Ghost Rider and Captain America (!!!) and has a revealing interview with… ummm… me, where I get to rat out ComicMix’s own Glenn Hauman and Brian Alvey.
Plus — can the sound of Tiffany’s voice cure cataracts? You can find out on our third podcast simply by simply hitting the play button:
Transcript
We're back. Well, they couldn't stop us and actually they didn't really try, but that's a whole other story. We'll wrap up with another ComicMix Podcast, finally The Weeknd and Ghost Riders in the theaters.
We're going to look a little bit about that movie for you and the case of the missing action comics is up today. You're going to love that. We'll wrap up the fun that's been going on a toy fair, slide back to the 80s for some big hair fun and finally, even though I promised that the other day I will get to the story
of the two Adam Stranges. This I promise you. Plus in the very first edition of our hot seat, we're going to talk to ComicMix mastermind Mike Gold about where all this came from and where it's going. All that on the podcast for February 17th, 2007.
ComicMix. Well, the guys at DC Comics have got to love this after publishing action comics every month for about a zillion years or so. And even every week for a while back there in the 80s, they finally ran into a snag. Action Comics number 848 is supposed to be out in a few weeks was originally supposed
to have the last part of the last son story in it. This time in 3d. Well, that's not going to happen. Instead you're going to see a story called redemption. It's a two part story by Fabian Yssienza with art by Alan Goldman.
And it's a pretty cool story. It's not really a fill in. I think you'll like this one. However, then that runs at 848 and 849. Now take notes on this.
Number 850 is a special 48 page issue written by Kurt Busiak, Geoff Johns and Fabian Yssienza. And it's a story of when Supergirl comes back from the future. What happens with a lot of glimpses about things that will be taking place in both Superman and action over the next few months. So what happens to last son?
Well, it's going to be coming along in Action Comics number 851, which we won't see in the stores until June. The 3d edition that's been canceled altogether. So just forget it. All right, hang on.
There may be a quiz on that later on. Here he comes. Here he comes. Great as tall you've ever been. And his name is Mr. Machine.
He is real. He is real. And for you he is ideal. And his name is Mr. Machine. Well, Toy Fair is a special 48 page story by Alan Goldman.
And it's a special 48 page story written by Kurt Busiak. And it's a special 48 page story by Alan Goldman. And it's a special 48 page story by Alan Goldman. And it's a special 48 page story by Alan Goldman. And it's a special 48 page story by Alan Goldman.
Well, Toy Fair in New York is wrapped up with the excitement of still keeping people in the Big Apple warm. There were some great things shown there, including some wonderful stuff from DC Comics. They have a new animated direct to video Superman feature that's been getting a lot of toys from DC.
It's called the death of Superman. And in the sense, you're going to see, of course, a doomsday, a solar suit Superman, Lex Luthor, and a lot more characters. Those will be in the regular stores. Now for the stuff that goes directly to the comic book stores, DC Direct.
There's a Superman Batman series. This is number four in that series. It features a Batzaro, a Bizarro, of course, Superwoman, Bad Woman, Bad Man Beyond, and a variant Batman dressed in a kryptonite suit, which is kind of cool. Later on, there'll be a 52 series coming in May.
You'll see in there characters we never thought we'd be able to play with like Animal Man, Bad Woman, Booster Gold, and Isis. There's an Infinite Crisis series two coming with a battle damaged Batman, Superman, Firestorm, Donna Troy Wonder Woman, Donna Troy Wonder Girl, variant, and a lot more. Later on, you'll see a Justice League of America series.
It'll have a Superman, a Black Lightning, a Black Canary, a Vixen, and a Red Arrow. That'll come late in the summer, probably in August. There'll be another series of Alex Ross's Justice. This will be series number six. It'll have a Batman, a Green Lantern, a Hog Girl, and a Scarecrow.
But best of all, this is the one everyone was talking about. There's a Shazam series, which features in the classic costumes now, Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, yes, she's in red, Captain Marvel Junior, Billy Batson, and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. Shazam!
That and a lot more will be coming out. You'll see pictures of those on the website here at ComicMix, so don't forget to look for them. You can always search on some of the great toys and some of the things that happen at toys there right here.
ComicMix.com. ComicMix Hot Z. It's our very first podcast interview, and we had to go right to the top on this one. Now you remember a few days ago in our first podcast, we brought in my goal to explain the basics of what ComicMix is and more important where it's going to be in the weeks
to come. Well, mastermind Mr. Gold is back again. This time we got him on the hot seat and we got some serious questions about it. For example, the secret origin of ComicMix. Where did this all begin?
Well, I was looking for other means to deliver comics to the readers. At first I was playing around with PDF files, you know, Adobe Acrobat files, and having people buy them online. Clearly what we've learned from the internet is that the only thing that people really willing to pay for is pornography.
So the free model came in. And it just so happens that Glenn Hauman, who had been thinking along the same lines, but with reprint material. So sort of one day I sort of said, you know, I've been thinking about this. And Glenn says, well, funny you should mention that I've been thinking about that.
We merged the two and brought in a third partner, a guy named Brian Alvey, a really wonderful guy who's a vice president of America Online. And his former partners had created several major blogging websites in terms of hosting different blogging features, TMZ and programs like that. And then they created the advertising models to go along with that so that all of that
stuff is advertising supported. Brian also happens to be a comics fan. He was involved in the establishment of Fangoria's websites and other things like that. So this is literally a perfect match for us. Brian has the technical expertise and the experience in the advertising field.
Glenn has the expertise in terms of setting ourselves up on the internet and internet publishing. And I have the expertise on the production of new comics. And the relationships with the freelance community, with the creative community. So it was a good match.
How does ComicMix fit into the roadmap of where comic books are going? I've always been very, very jealous of what goes on in Japan, what goes on in Belgium, all over the country, except for North America really, where they can do comics for every conceivable audience. 87-year-old grandmothers quite literally have their own comics in Japan.
You can buy them in the subway kiosks. Any particular audience, there's stuff out there for them. We only recently have been able to expand the field here in the United States and we haven't expanded it very much. We've brought in manga from Japan.
There's been some attempts to do stuff that really isn't heroic fantasy with varying degrees of success. Well, that's because people have to go to comic book stores. And there are only about a thousand comic book stores. People play games with numbers, but in terms of the actual number of stores as opposed
to diamond accounts, there's only about a thousand stores. And those stores, by and large, since they buy everything non-returnable, do not take too many chances. They can't afford to take too many chances. Here we're previewing all of that stuff for people.
We're allowing people to read it before they buy it. Then in terms of our new material, we will print them off in trade paperback format, in graphic novel form. We're just skipping over the pamphlet. You know, in the weeks to come as ComicMix of all, we'd like to know what we'll see beyond
the news and of course this podcast on the site. There's got to be a lot more coming. Every day, Monday through Friday, we're going to be launching another series and every week we're going to be printing another chapter. Those new comics stories will start coming up in March.
Creators such as Trevor Von Eden and Mike Grell and Timothy Truman and John Ostrander. A little later on down the road, Bo Hampton and Ian Gibson are going to be joining us. Some well-known stories and characters like GrimJack and Jon Sable and the Prowler will be with us and a lot of brand new stuff. Six months from now, hopefully we'll be delivering new material every day, seven days a week.
And as we finish one graphic novel, we'll be replacing it with another by other people. That doesn't mean that we won't do the next GrimJack story. Six months after we finish the first one, it's a graphic novel. We can do it whenever we want when people have time. And the creators can go on and do other projects that you might see on ComicMix, you might
see image comics. So the creators have a lot more freedom, not only in terms of what it is that they can create, but in terms of how they handle their own careers. They have more options now. We pay the creators an advance and a good one, a competitive advance.
And we're very creator rights friendly. If we're successful and we make a lot of money, so will the creators. Which is an interesting change in the comics history in the United States of America. Usually it's only the publisher that makes out. The big question I know everybody's asking right now, how much is this going to cost?
It's all for free. Our basic comics, all the reprint material, everything that we add on a daily basis, all of that is absolutely free. It's an advertising supported website, major advertisers. Alright, thank you Mike.
If you'll let us out of the door, we'll take our blindfold off please. We'll be telling you more about ComicMix in the weeks to come for sure. Come back to the site often and watch us grow. There's always something new here of course. Any questions you can get in touch with us anytime 24 seven podcast at ComicMix.com.
Www.ComicMix.com ComicMix timeline February 17th 1988. Well when we ran into comic bookstores this week, we grabbed a copy of Amazing Spider Man number 299. Todd McFarlane was still riding high on the artwork there. It was a great issue but we were pretty excited about the fact we were only one month away
from number 300 and we couldn't wait. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hit issue number 13, again another good story, but we had no idea that in a couple of weeks they were about ready to explode in every Toys R Us and every neighborhood with those action figures that we would be so desperately trying to find.
And let's not even talk about that first movie that was coming up. DC premiered the very first issue of Flash Gordon and gave us a way cool issue of Secret Origins with Zatara and Zatanna. In the movie theaters, big movie this weekend, Frantic with Harrison Ford. The movies that we've forgotten about that kind of drifted away from our memories this
week, well Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, Aloha Summer and Bloodsport all available in the three for a dollar DVD rack somewhere near you. On television CBS had its Friday night big cult hit, No it wasn't a CSI clone or even Ghost Whisperer. It involved a tunnel and a couple of people with big hair except one of them was a beast.
She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climbs and starry skies. Ah Vincent, you know if you look at him in the right light he kind of looks like this girl. She had big hair, she was dancing around all the malls in the midwest and this week she had a song everybody was crying to on the radio.
It's Tiffany. You know I still say in the right light her hair, Vincent's hair, they were really really similar. I swear they were really. Alright here's our mail bag for this week and I had to do this one from Bad Daddy 6565
at Yahoo.com. He says a friend of mine tried to convince me there were two versions of Adam Strange but I know there was never an earth to Adam Strange by that name or any other name so what is it, what is he talking about? Well you know I hate to tell you this but your friend is actually right.
First of all there's the basic Adam Strange, the guy you know that premiered in Showcase number 17. He's the guy right now getting his ass kicked over in 52 but there was another one. In 1964 long time Mystery in Space editor Julia Schwartz was moved over to the Batman titles and then they brought in to replace him and editor at DC named Jack Schiff.
He had a character called Space Ranger who was in Tales of the Unexpected. He took his character, put him as the lead in Mystery in Space but what did you do with Adam Strange? It wasn't fair after all that time to make him a second stringer so what they decided to do was create a second Adam Strange.
This guy was allegedly a descendant of the first guy somewhere in the 22nd, 23rd century and the idea that sounds thin probably was thin and didn't last long at all. The only good thing is somewhere along the line I think they had a crossover story where he met the original Adam Strange but don't quote me on that. Thanks a lot for your letter.
We'd love to get your questions anytime. Podcast at ComicMix.com is how to reach us and for more on Adam Strange, Space Ranger or many many many of the cool things that turned up over the years in Mystery in Space you know where to find it. Just go to search.
This weekend Hell is coming to your local movie theater in the form of Ghost Rider. Nicholas Cage stars as Johnny Blaze, you know the story, a motorcycle stunt writer who is sold he sold to the devil in order to protect the people he loves. Now at night he becomes the spirit of vengeance. You got that part.
The film was written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. He's the guy who worked on Daredevil a couple of years ago. His name has also been attached to that new proposed preacher series over on HBO. A lot of people were wondering about whether or not this is the 70's version of Ghost Rider or the 90's version.
Actually he said it's a combination of both because they got the origin story from the 70's but a lot of the characters and a lot of the side stories all come from the 90's version. By the way just something cool to think about when you see the movie. You'll see Peter Fonda there.
He plays the character Mephisto. Peter Fonda's first big film, the one he's most noted for back in the 70's was a film called Easy Rider. The name of his character there was Captain America. So you got Captain America versus Ghost Rider.
Well it's kind of a geeky thing but work with me on that alright. ComicMix. Well let's not say goodbye. Let's just say au revoir. No let's say goodbye.
Well that wraps it up for this time but you know we're going to be back on Tuesday and that'll mean the day that we do our rundown of what's going to be hit in the comic book stores this week, what's cool, what's not and what you want to get a few dollars together for and we'll start our big countdown to the New York Comic Con. See you then.
ComicMix.com.
