Carmine Infantino talks!

Jimmy Gimli gives us a first look for Free Comic Day, Carmine Infantino says there’s too much sex in comics, and the Isley Brothers riff on Bruce Willis — all this, plus validated parking in this edition of the ComicMix podcast.

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Transcript

www.ComicMix.com ComicMix It was a lot of little things. Little things? A little thing will be just fine. Well, it's just in for you. Carol Burnett and Stan Lee are both still suing people and Captain America is still dead.

Hi there, welcome into the weekend. It is Mike Raub with yet another Saturday podcast for you. A trip back in time today. Our very first look at free comic book day and a lot more. All coming up on March 24th, 2007. ComicMix. I don't miss this when the March 26th issue of Time magazine is doing full coverage on Marvel Comics recent death of Captain America storyline.

They're featuring in the milestones column there. And there's a quote from Marvel publisher Dan Buckley about whether or not Cap is really dead. Buckley says he's very dead right now. I'm getting better. Now you're not. You'll be still dead in a moment. Speaking of dead, DC Comics has put the brakes on Doctor Fate, that mini series that was scheduled to be out in the month of April.

Orders for Doctor Fate number one and for the Doctor Fate variant edition and for Doctor Fate number two have all been cancelled by DC. They said they'll make an announcement about this at a later date. Here's a variant cover you're going to have to work really hard to get, but it sure is worth it. Retailers are getting a chance to get a very special variant to Spider Girl number seven. Amazing Spider Girl number seven.

If you want to be exact, it's done by Ed McGinnis. They get one for every 15 copies of the book they order. So make sure if you want that you talk to your retailer as soon as possible. May is usually the time when TV series get the good or the bad news as to whether or not they're going to be picked up or cancelled. But ABC is jumping the gun and announcing early that they're going to bring back several of their series.

That includes brothers and sisters, men and trees and ugly Betty will all be back for a second season. Also, The Bachelor, Boston Legal, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Grey's Anatomy, Jimmy Kim Alive and best of all Lost. Put your gun back in your pants, Sawyer. Of course, there's nothing there that was on a surprise. None of those series were anywhere close to being on the bubble.

The big news all come in May, like I said, when everybody makes their announcements and we start pleading for those series we really love to not get kicked out the door. Fox comedy pilot, Meehan Lee, which stars Lee Majors has found a lead character. Jamie Kennedy will be in that new series. If you heard about this, Majors plays himself. Kennedy plays a guy who gets a bionic back after surgery in Majors Beverly Hills basement performed by Majors.

It's a throwback, obviously, to the six million dollar man. Speaking of more bionics, the bionic woman coming from NBC is Anna Miguel Farrar and Chris Bowers of the cast. Michelle Ryan will play, of course, Jamie, the bionic woman. And Battlestar Galactica has been not only renewed, but Syfy says they're going to increase the episode order from 13 to 22 for next season. That's season number four.

There will also be a two hour special event scheduled for some time later this year, and that will be released on DVD. Richard Dean Anderson is going to come back as Captain Jack O'Neill for the forthcoming Stargate Continuum film from MGM. He joins the cast members already signed, which include Ben Browder and Amanda Tappen. And NBC is refocusing all their plans on the Internet, which is going to turn out to be good news for fans of Heroes. According to The Hollywood Reporter, they're going to expand their Heroes 360 experience that they started earlier this year and continue the online graphic novel even after the show ends on May 8.

So all summer long, you'll get new Heroes material from NBC. Comic. M-I-X. ComicMix.com. For a long time, Jimmy Gamley is entertained with a book called Emil U Rules.

It's been in the comic store since, well, pretty much almost the end of the last decade, a lot of great stories and kind of flying under the radar in some cases. But trust me, anybody who's read the book will be the first person to come to you and tell you just how great it was. We had a chance to talk to Jimmy, who this year is doing a major deal for the upcoming free comic book day. We have a brand new story called Hanging Out, which if anyone's familiar with the book, Reggie does labored definitions of very normal things.

And this is the most elaborate yet about hanging out, which he considers the greatest American invention. And so we have that. We also have a preview of an upcoming title from us called Apathy Cat by a cartoonist called Harold Buckholtz, who's just amazingly talented and it's a great book. And then a little bit of a sampler from some of the best of Amelia in the past. We also noticed there were a lot more trade paperbacks of Amelia and few regular issues.

Is that going to be a trend? No, we're definitely going to continue doing the regular comic. As a matter of fact, we're ramping it up in 2007. We have one coming out at the end of March, a free comic book day edition and then a new issue in June, which I'm actually very excited about. But what happened was we had switched over to iBooks Publishing and iBooks, unfortunately, is no longer in existence.

So we got the rights to the book back and we wanted to put out some really nice trade paper back and hardcover editions because we've been really supported by libraries. We've been really supported with schools and bookstores and even book clubs like the Children's Book of the Month Club. So we definitely wanted to move in that direction, but we wanted to keep the comic book as well. Again, when you hit the stores this week, don't forget to take a little extra time to look for some of the issues, either trade paperback or single of Amelia Rules. And free comic book day is on the way.

That comes up Saturday, the 5th of May. We'll be talking about that a lot in the weeks to come. But for complete details and updates, freecomicbookday.com is the place to go. Comicmixed.com. Comicmixed mailbag. Here's one of those letters I really am happy to get because it proves that you all are paying attention.

It's from Anwar44 at Hotmail. Anwar says, of course, he drops into Comicmixed several times every day and was really excited a few days back when he saw on our site that Nexus will be coming back self-published by co-creator Steve Roode. Anwar said, this may be decided to start filling in on my back issue, but I need some help. There have been so many different publishers do Nexus over the years. Can you give me a real quick 411 on Nexus Publishing History?

All right, here we go. Now take notes on this because we're going to do it as slowly as possible, but you may miss something. The series Nexus, of course, originally debuted as a three-issue black and white miniseries, followed by an 80-issue ongoing full-color series. The black and white issues and the first six color issues were published by Capitol Comics, which at the time was a subsidiary of the Capitol City Distribution Company. Then after that, first comics took over publication.

In addition to the ongoing series, first reprinted the original miniseries as a graphic novel and then later reprinted the first two years of the ongoing series in a series called Nexus Legends. Okay, take a deep breath. The ongoing series was also supplemented by another miniseries called the Next Nexus that was a four-issue mini, followed by Nexus number 52. Following the conclusion of the ongoing series, there were seven semi-annual miniseries published by both Steve Roode and his partner, Mike Berry. These were published, of course, by First Comics as well, and then later by Dark Horse Comics.

The last of these was put in black and white not very long ago. Now, Dark Horse has also done hardcover Nexus archives as well. Those archives have gone through volumes one through five, reprinting everything up to Nexus volume two, number 32. So you got to dig for those as well. Okay, here we are. Alt dot nerd dot obsessive.

All right, how about crossovers and all that sort of thing? Well, the Badger, you know, which was also created by Mike Baron and also published by First Comics, had made several guest appearances in Nexus. Nexus, Badger, and a whole bunch of other first characters, including American Flag, GrimJack, and a lot more, were all brought together in the first comics miniseries crossroads. You got to look for that one. Following the switch from first to Dark Horse, Nexus also crossed over with Mad Man in Nexus Meets Mad Man, oddly enough, and Magnus Robot Fighter in Magnus Robot Fighter Nexus.

Bunch of stuff for you to look for, Anwar. Better get on eBay as soon as possible. Thank you for your note. You know, you can get in touch with us anytime. We'd love to hear your questions, comments, whatever it is.

Easy to reach. Of course we are. Podcast at ComicMix.com is how you do it. It was classic Marvel Comic Time this week with Fantastic Four number 51 and that incredible This Man, This Monster story, along with Avengers number 28. From ACG, we got a Magic Man story in Forbidden Worlds number 135, Gold Key gave us Dr. Solar number 17, and Charlton came up with Judo Master number 89.

From DC, Batman 180 had Death Knocks three times, Metawarp phone number six had Never Bet Against an Alma Man, and in Flash number 161 was the case of the Curious Costume. It was actually a story inspired by the cover to Flash number 159, a great little story about Flash's identity being revealed after his wedding day was ruined and it was all told from the point of view of the costume. Part of the innovative even for 1966, drawn of course by the incredible Carmine Infatino. We talked to Carmine lately, we asked him what he thought of the comics that were coming out today. I'm not crazy what's going on now.

I don't think they like the sexual environments in the books. That's the easy way out. The way we did it years ago, like John was right, that's creative. No sex, no violence, but very interesting stuff. Not a lot of T&A on TV, Carmine back in 1966, it was run buddy run, pistols and petticoats and occasional wife, two shows that sounded a lot more naughty than they really were.

But everybody was actually sitting around lusting after good old Ellie Mae. The Beverly Hillbilly. What do you think, bro? You think you got a move? Chad, look around you. You're eight miles from your nearest neighbor. You're the one with skonks, possums, coyotes. You use kerosene lamps for light, you cook on a wood stove, summer and winter.

You're drinking homemade moon chimes and your bathroom is 50 feet from the house and you ask your jaloon? Yeah, I reckon you're right. Man be a dang fool, you leave all this. In movies, it was a mixed bag from the singing nun to Walk Don't Run to Paul Newman starring in Harper. And on the radio, a song that sounds just as good in 2007 as it did back then.

Bonus points if you can tell me the episode of moonlighting this turned up in. Out of the Motor City, it was the Islay Brothers. Bringin' you back again, turnin' me more than more. Maybe it's my mistake to show this love I feel inside. Cause each day that lies behind, you never know when it's all comin' off doin' work.

ComicMix dot com. And is that always it, a man who can't be bribed, can't be trusted? Isn't it comforting to know that you can trust me? Well that puts a cap on another week. We got a brand new week starting in just a few days and boy do we have some surprises for you there.

Starting of course with our rundown of all the things coming into the comic book stores this week. And a couple of unexpected deals that we're gonna share with you that I think you're gonna find to be a lot of fun. Don't miss it, we'll be back in a few days right here and let us know what you think. Podcast at ComicMix.com of course. Talk to you soon, bye. www.ComicMix.com