Monthly Archive: August 2007

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Screw Heaven, When I Die I’m Going to Mars

screw-7449533Shannon Wheeler (no relation, as far as I know) is, of course, the creator of Too Much Coffee Man, and also the possessor of the world’s greatest surname. (Trust me: I know.) This is his new book, which is not another TMCM collection, though TMCM does show up in a couple of strips.

Screw Heaven is copyright 2007, and doesn’t contain any information about previous appearances of any of the strips collected in it. That either means that it’s all completely new and never-before seen (plausible, but I’d expect the book would hold together more coherently if that were the case) or that Dark Horse neglected to mention that these are from Wheeler’s previously-published comics, or website, or magazine work, or something else entirely. I’m a suspicious, pessimistic, grumpy guy, so I’m assuming that the latter is actually the case – though I have no evidence either way.

Screw Heaven opens with an introduction by Jesse Michaels (singer of something called Operation Ivy, of which I have never heard) and then dives into twelve “chapters,” each with between one and twenty single-page cartoons. Some of the chapters collect cartoons that clearly go together; chapter three, for example, is nearly a complete narrative. Others are more general, and only tied together by a theme.

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More Mighty Marvel Movies! Powers Speaks!

benturpin-7994577It’s The Big ComicMix Broadcast Wizard World Chicago pre-game show (whew!) loaded with this week’s avalanche of new comics and DVDs fresh in the stores. Mike Oeming tips us on what’s ahead for Powers and we uncover the hidden secrets of G.I. Joe!  We reveal what the stock brokers know about all those undisclosed new films coming from Marvel (including Thor and, seperately, The Avengers), and then it’s a trip back to the Nixon era for a song on the radio by a guy name "Yokim" who wasn’t from Dogpatch!

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll spend a cool 14 minutes… but only when you PRESS THE BUTTON!

Ellis’s Engine seizes up

  • News
  • August 7, 2007

engine-1755374Quoting directly from Warren’s Bad Signal blast: "THE ENGINE will close  a little before midnight UK time on August 31 2007. The first year  was about getting creators together and facilitating conversations that  didn’t have anywhere else to go.  The second year was about just  providing people with an interesting place to talk.  Two years is  enough.  Time to move on. So you’ve got three weeks to mine out the  place for the data you need, exchange contact details and all  that."

"I’ve informed Andrew, the host, of my intent — it’s up to him  whether or not the Engine remains as a static archive, though I’ve told him  it’s not necessary.  The search function has always been a bit weird,  so I’ll be opening a thread for you to help each other find what you  need. http://engine.ning.com will remain open — in fact, I’ll add a  forum function to it for those of you who want to stay together and stay  talking."

Great, now we need to build a new online community for comics creators, fans, and the like…

Hmmm.

Comics Store Owner Busted For Murder

  • Uncategorized
  • August 7, 2007

Sadly, it’s not the title of a Margret Truman thriller.

According to reporter Patrick Buchnowski of the Johnstown PA Tribune-Democrat, the owner of Comics World in Windber PA  has been charged with execution-style murder of his wife  that happened 17 years ago. Michael Ralph George was charged by police in Clinton Township, Mich., with killing his then-wife, Barbara Marie George, in July 1990. The 32-year-old’s body was found by customers in the back of the couple’s Michigan store (also Comics World ) and $30,000 worth of comic books were taken. Police assumed the killer was familiar with classic comic books and the trading card industry because of the value of the items taken.

Barbara Marie George died of a single shot to the head from a .38-caliber gun after closing the store to prepare a surprise birthday party for husband, then 30, according to The Macomb Daily. The couple had two small children.

Thanks to Jamie Graham for the story.

Smell like Neil Gaiman?

  • Uncategorized
  • August 7, 2007

stardustfurr-8140427With the opening of Stardust just days away, there’s never been a better time to exploit Neil Gaiman for a good cause.  According to a press release, Black Phoenix Alchemy lab will release five fragrances "inspired by Stardust" including  ‘Fairy Market" and "The Witch Queen."   Good Omens, while not a movie at this time, is a very funny book Neil wrote with Terry Pratchett, and the inspiration for scents titled "Crowley" and "Aziraphale."

Proceeds will be split between the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a charity with which Neil has long been associated, and the Orangutan Foundation UK, which preserves habitats and research for orangutans.

Here’s the best paragraph of the release:

"The collaboration between artistic visionaries is always an exciting and thought-provoking endeavor. Rarely, if ever, though, have modern literary characters been so lovingly and accurately interpreted by a skilled perfumer. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s interpretations of Gaiman’s colorful and thoroughly unique characters are, like the characters themselves, creative masterpieces and not to be missed."

Obviously, this will work out best for orangutans arrested for obscenity.

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Ambush Bug Lives!

  • News
  • August 7, 2007

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The official Comics Should Be Good “Reason to Love Comics” for Monday was my man Keith Giffen. (“My man” in the sense that I agree that he’s totally awesome, not that I’ve ever met the guy.) And once again, I must demand Ambush Bug trade paperbacks to make the world the kind of place it should be.

The Irish Independent looks at the graphic novel adaptation of the first of Eoin Colfer’s “Artemis Fowl” books.

Comic Book Resources talks to Neil Gaiman via the magic of video.

Comic Book Resources has also drunk the DC Kool-Aid and is trying to convince us that we ever cared about Booster Gold. Sorry, it’s not working…

The Beat has San Diego photos, with commentary – your money quote: “Nothing is sadder than a Superman with a droopy vinyl crotch.”

Elliot S! Maggin, author of the greatest Superman novel ever (sorry, Tom De Haven, it’s Miracle Monday), is running for Congress. Hey, if Gopher could make it in, I think he’s got a good chance. [via The Beat]

Sci Fi Weekly interviews Neil Gaiman, reviews Elizabeth Bear’s Undertow, and sets John Clute to wind up Jay Lake’s Mainspring.

The Golden Duck Awards, for excellence in science fiction for children, were presented at TuckerCon, this year’s NASFiC, over the weekend. The winners were:

  • Picture Book: Night of the Homework Zombies by Scott Nickel, illustrated by Steve Harpster
  • Middle Grades: Apers by Mike Jansen and Barbara Day Zincola
  • Young Adult: Rash by Pete Hautman
  • Special Award: Write Your Own Science Fiction Story by Tish Farrel

[via SF Scope]

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DENNIS O’NEIL: One Upon A Time

  • News
  • August 7, 2007

dennyoneil10017-7473629Once upon a time, way back, I was just a tiny bit afraid that the stepchild of American publishing wherein I labored, comics, would not be properly documented – that the right people weren’t being interviewed, the right information preserved. I needn’t have worried. Thanks largely to an army of scholars-without-portfolios – we called them fans – I think comics are likely to be the best documented art form in history. These people, and more recently the academics that involve themselves with popular culture, must have found sources of information completely unknown to me, and I applaud them for it.

Among my current sprinkling of projects is writing introductions for a collection of essays concerning what I guess we can unblushingly call the Batman mythos. More documentation and, I’d like to believe, welcome. The next intro I’ll do will be for a piece by Paul Lytle on Arkham Asylum. That name – Arkham Asylum – is familiar to Batman devotees and maybe to some folk not quite so devoted because it played a prominent part in the last mega-budget Batman movie. It is, for you who are not devotees and those who weren’t paying attention while you watched Batman Begins, the place where the criminally insane of Batman’s rollicking home town, Gotham City, are sent for incarceration and rehabilitation though, judging from results, the staff of the institution aren’t very good at either task.

But – here comes our big reveal, and I’m mostly addressing devotees, though the rest of you can stay – have you ever wondered where that distinctive name came from? Oh sure, the better read among you will recognize the word “Arkham” from H.P. Lovecraft’s tales – Arkham was the spooky burg where Lovecraft’s things went bump in the night. But who had the inspiration to associate it with the residence of Gotham’s host of loonies? I was pretty sure I knew, but, as you may remember, a couple of columns ago I trusted my memory and erred. So I sent an email. Here, in part, is the reply:

Our original conversation regarding where criminals such as the Joker and Two-Face should be incarcerated took place in March of 1974, when you and Len Wein were guest speakers at Jim Dever’s and my comics history course at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). The first mention of Arkham was in your Two-Face story that appeared in Batman #258, which was cover dated September, 1974.

 

 – JCH

 

The JCH that signs the letter stands for Jack C. Harris, a veteran writer, editor, historian and, for the past decade, give or take, a comics writing teacher at the School of Visual Arts in lower Manhattan. Credit where it’s due – where it’s long overdue.

If Jack were here, I’d ask him to take a bow.

RECOMMENDED READING: Awareness, by Anthony de Mello. Those of you who look at this blather every week may have guessed that I’m not a huge fan of organized religion these days, largely because of the misuses to which it’s currently being put, and the book recommended above is by a Jesuit. Well, if the Jebbies who presided over my university years were like de Mello, I might lay some bucks on the alumni fund once in a while.

Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.

The Stories Behind The Stories …

  • News
  • August 6, 2007

reboot-8447670With our suitcase still not unpacked from San Diego, or packed for Chicago, we had a pretty busy week on The Big ComicMix Broadcast.  Life after the SDCC seems to be as busy as ever, with a lot of things both New & Cool we covered for you…

• ReBoot, the much loved CGI series from earlier this decade is coming back as a movie trilogy! Right now, the offer is open to different producers to submit their ideas for the direction of the revival – and you can see (and vote on) these choices here

• Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall game that premiered at SDCC can be previewed at the FusionFall website. If you are interested, you can sign-up for a chance to participate in beta testing for the game.

• If making movies seems more your thing, The Ultimate Star Wars Fanboy (or Girl!) contest is up and runs through August 31st here or even here. As we told you, it ties into the release of the Fanboys major motion picture, set to come out in January of next year.

snoopdog-2759795• If you haven’t seen the MySpace version of Dark Horse Presents you can take a look here. Among the first works presented is "Sugar Shock" from Josh Whedon and artist Fabio Moon. There’s also a great new story from Rick Geary!

• If you got excited about the return of Snoopy, then take a minute to see more from Namco Networks here. In addition, they carry a lot of retro games (Pac-Man anyone?) for your mobile phone.

WizardWorld Chicago begins on Thursday, and by now you have probably guessed we will be there with microphone in hand. Take a look at the guest list here then drop us a comment and tell us who YOU would like to hear from on The Big ComicMix Broadcast. We will be streaming direct from the floor, Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday, and of course there will be news and photos right here at ComicMix.com!

Superman’s Fortress of Solitude found

  • News
  • August 6, 2007

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From Howard Margolin of Destinies: the Voice of Science Fiction, we get this discovery of these cyrstal caverns buried a thousand feet below Mexico’s Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan desert.

This has been quite a year for Superman fans; the deadly remnants of planet Krypton were discovered in a mine in Serbia this past April (see Kryptonite Discovered By Scientist).

And if you look all the way down at the bottom of the cave, you can see Ursa and Non…

MIKE GOLD: Only Reliable No More

  • Uncategorized
  • August 6, 2007

mikegold100-6689724Well, going to the supermarket isn’t going to be much fun any more.

No doubt you’ve heard about the demise of the print version of The Weekly World News. It billed itself as the world’s only reliable newspaper, and it certainly was that. It was also one of the best-written newspapers in America.

The Weekly World News was a hoot. Its headlines always brought a smile to my face, and on more than one occasion I would be found laughing out loud while waiting in line at the Stop and Shop. No matter how outrageous the premise, each story was written absolutely straight, as though Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden actually had a child or we really had space aliens in the Senate.

Well, maybe that last one wasn’t so reliable. That could be true, I guess.

Quite a number of people who had been in the comics business, including ComicMixers Robert Greenberger and Ric Meyers, were either on staff at the WWN or were regular contributors. The paper also published comics by Ernie Colón, Craig Boldman, Mike Collins, Danielle Corsetto, and Sergio Aragonés. We hadn’t seen such a line-up of first-rate comics talent in a weekly newspaper since Grit stopped running Steve Canyon, Mandrake The Magician, Archie and Blondie.

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