We want to wish a happy silver birthday to Billie Piper, best known here in the States as Rose Tyler, the recent companion of Doctor Wh– pardon? Why are we covering the birthday of an actress that has nothing to do with comics?
Three reasons: first, there is going to be a Doctor Who comic book from our good friends over at IDW coming out this December. Second, she might be making a return appearance to Whoville.
Third, Because We Want To:
Before he started to host The Daily Show, I saw Jon Stewart do his monologue on one of those charity benefits organized by Denis Leary. Comparing Yom Kippur to Lent and, therefore, Jews to Catholics, Stewart said, “You give up something for 40 days. We go one day without eating. Even in sin, you pay retail.”
When this is posted, I’ll be fasting. It’s true that, as a Jew, a woman and a New Yorker, I appreciate a bargain. However, that’s not why I don’t eat. It’s also true that going without a few meals is nothing new to me, being the compulsive bad dieter that I am. Most Saturdays, I eat a piece of fruit for breakfast and then, because I have a zillion chores, nothing else until dinner. So, this Saturday, I won’t have my morning apple. It’s not a big sacrifice.
The sacrifice is forgoing the errands. On Saturdays, I go to the Union Square Green Market. In the fall, it’s a riot of color and smells, with fresh herbs, heirloom tomatoes, summer and winter squash, and dozens of different apples, pears, peaches and pumpkins. For this city girl, it’s a reminder of the natural world, with its cycles of life and death, fertility and harvest. Going to the Green Market is a way for me to forgo the usual cerebral products with which I clutter my day, and to be a mom and a wife, caring for my family and being a part of my community. Plus, I get to talk to farmers, which is a rare and glamorous thing to do in Manhattan.
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the culmination of the Days of Awe. I should have spent this time examining my behavior, accepting responsibility for my mistakes, and doing my best to fix them. Instead, I’m thinking about what I’ll be missing for one day. This is something I should fix. Ah, the circle of life.
There are many Jews who are fine people who don’t, for one reason or another, fast on Yom Kippur. There have been years when I haven’t fasted, when I went to work and ignored the holiday. I was in my twenties, determined to recreate myself as an individual separate from my family. For the last two decades, however, I’ve gone to services and enjoyed them. I enjoy them. It feels good to say the prayers on the same cycle every year, as my ancestors did. It’s funny to listen to the stomach grumblings of the people around me, the contrast between our spiritual and biological impulses.
Fasting is supposed to give your body a chance to detoxify, to eliminate the crud we accumulate in our regular lives. Fasting for one day probably doesn’t get rid of many toxins, but it allows me to clear my head, to consider how lucky I am to be able to go without food by choice, instead of being forced to starve by circumstances. Saying ritual prayers and fasting separates me from the mundane, and lets me see life as a glorious blessing.
When I walk out the synagogue doors, the air is usually clean and clear, and Central Park is bathed in sunlight. When the sun sets, and I dip my apple slice into honey, it can sometimes be so unbearably sweet that it makes my cheeks hurt. I’m so grateful to be alive that I know this year will be worthwhile.
Martha Thomases, Media Goddess of all things ComicMix, promises to write about comics next week.
Bummed out because Jonathan Ross’ BBC4 documentary In Search of Steve Ditko isn’t being shown in the US? God bless the internets, we say. Here’s part one:
YouTube has it up in seven parts; here are sections <a href=”
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. The documentary also features Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Stan Lee, and a veddy English sensibility throughout; enjoy!
While Mike Gold shared the news about the honest-to-goodness JLA movie, another project was also announced yesterday.
Dimension Films will be producing the inevitable spoof entitled, what else, Superhero. The casting has been completed with filming about to begin and a March 28, 2008 release date set.
The film features perennial spoof master Leslie Neilsen, in addition to Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Marion Ross (Happy Days), the amazing Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), Drake Bell (High Fidelity), Sara Paxton (Sydney White), Christopher McDonald (Fanboys), Kevin Hart (Scary Movie 4), and Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars). The satire will be written and directed by Craig Mazin (Scary Movie 3 and 4).
Of course, Mystery Men was a wonderful superhero spoof ahead of its time, so we’ll reserve judgment until next spring.
Usually, when a major motion picture wants to film in a major metropolis, the city and its movie relations department bends over backwards to help the company spend all those millions of dollars.
Not so in Hong Kong.
The Dark Knight (a.k.a. Batman Begins Returns) was, and might still be, going to Hong Kong in November for nine days of shooting in what is generally regarded as a visually spectacular city. But Chinese politicians are balking, siting traffic disruptions and noise pollution. After all, there will be helicoper scenes.
The Dark Knight has wound up several months of shooting in some of the more populated sections of Chicago without incident. In fact, this was a return visit to the "Windy" City, as Batman Begins also did a lot of location work there. As did Spider-Man 2.
Hong Kong is hardly known for its quiet environs, and one suspects the politicos are simply holding out for more money or, as is more commonly known in the industry, "bribes."
Thanks to Adriane Nash for the lead.
On this day in 1947, Stephen Edwin King, a.k.a. "Richard Bachman", "John Swithen", and "that guy who looks like Frankenstein trying to play rhythm guitar for the Rock Bottom Remainders" was born. Presumably, it was under a full moon with howling wolves and eldritch fog in the distance…
King is best known to comics fans today for the Marvel adaptation of his Dark Tower series, but long time readers know him for the adaptations of Lawnmower Man by Walt Simonson and his adaptation of Creepshow with Berni Wrightson, and his contribution to Heroes For Hope and Heroes Against Hunger.
But only the trivia obsessed fan knows about King’s first attempt to break into Marvel. Way back in the 70’s, he pitched a X-Men story about this teenage girl who just discovered her telekinetic abilities, and the story was rejected by editor Marv Wolfman. The teenage girl got written into a stand-alone horror novel named Carrie, and… well, he got pretty well known pretty darn quick. Although, if this is to be believed, not quickly enough:
Neil Kofsky bets his buddies he can jump his motorcycle over a pile of bikes behind a bar. He clips the last cycle in the bunch, and has to escape from its owner through the alleys. He tries to hide in a coal chute when the bottom vanishes and he finds himself falling onto a floating man of war 15,000 feet in the air.
This is no ordinary floating boat. It’s battling fighter planes.
All this happens in the first three pages of Black Ice, the new graphic novel from the legendary Mike Baron and Nick Runge, a new artist whose first work was Mike Baron’s Detonator (October 2005).
Mike Baron has been one of the most innovative and honored creators in comics since he broke into the field with Nexus fifteen years ago with artist Steve Rude.
Mike has written numerous mainstream comics, including Marvel’s The Punisher and DC’s The Flash and Deadman. He is also the co-creator of Badger, Feud, Spyke and a number of other renowned titles.
He has been nominated for Best Writer in the Kirby, Harvey and Eisner Awards numerous times, and has won several Eisners for his work on Nexus. In his spare time, he writes novels, short stories and screenplays, works out, and rides his motorcycle through the countryside.
Nick Runge is 22 years old. His parents are both artists – his father teaching painting, drawing and design at a local college, and his mother is a graphic designer. He was studying art in Fort Collins, CO in 2004, when he met Baron, who saw Runge’s paintings in a gallery. His other work includes inking Gene Simmons’ House of Horrors for IDW and Fear Agent for Image. He’s also penciling and inking the covers for IDW’s new Badger mini-series.
Here’s what the boys have to say about their new project.
CM: Tell us about Black Ice.
MB: Black Ice is a heroic fantasy about an American teen who falls through a wormhole into an alternate universe. Two civilizations are at war: the sky-dwelling Luftar, and the militaristic Helmut. Young Neil finds himself in the middle of the fight, attracted to the captain’s daughter, and forced to fight to the death against a jealous prince. And that’s just the first issue. The series is really about how alien technology (Neil’s) affects civilization. It’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court for the space age.
What do you get when LOLcats meets PostSecret? Lolsecretz! [via John Scalzi]
Comics Links
Camden New Journal reports on a “market trader” (is that like a day trader, or does it mean a professional?) whose graphic novel Brodie’s Law has been bought by Hollywood for the proverbial pile of money.
Comic Book Resources talks to Daniel Way about the Origins of Wolverine…well, this year’s version, anyway.
A high school teacher in Connecticut has been forced to resign after giving a female first-year student a copy of Eightball #22, which her parents found inappropriate (to put it mildly).
Comics Reporter lists all of the recent firings at Wizard, among other comings and goings at various comics-publishing outfits.
Some guy at Comics2Film is very, very opinionated about what is and isn’t manga.
Comics Should Be Good, anticipating next year’s April Fool’s Day, reports that all indy publishers are now “selling out.”
Comics Reviews
Forbidden Planet International reviews the first collection of The Boys.
Comics Reporter reviews John Callahan’s 1991 cartoon collection Digesting the Child Within.
Newsarama reviews Gods of Asgard by Erik Evensen.
Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog takes on the Haney-riffic “Saga of the Super-Sons” from the early ‘70s.
Brad Curran of Comics Should Be Good reviews the first issue of Umbrella Academy.
Occasional Superheroine is impressed by the high level of emo in Penance: Relentless.
Occasional Superheroine also reviews Booster Gold #2 and Suicide Squad #1.
From The Savage Critics:
And YesButNoButYes also reviews this week’s comics, starting with Jungle Girl #1.
No, you geek, I’m not talking about Bilbo’s birthday of September 22, 2890 of the Third Age, being born to Bungo Baggins and Belladonna Took. That’s tomorrow.
But seventy years ago today, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. of London published the first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit in September 1937, illustrated with many black-and-white drawings by Tolkien himself. The original printing numbered a mere 1,500 copies and sold out by December due to smash reviews. Since then, it’s been printed in over 50 editions in English alone, and multiple media adaptions, including a graphic novel by David Wenzel, Chuck Dixon, and Sean Deming.
AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGG!!!
I had another S-No-C all ready to go when O.J. Simpson gets arrested! Damn, damn da-damn damn. As long time readers will know I have evoked O.J.’s name in the past so it’s falls on me to comment on these recent events. As I did when Paris Hilton was arrested. I was on her ass (figure of speech) long before her arrest so when she was arrested I had to comment.
How do I come to write about events and people before they become even more news worthy? Because I Michael Davis am really M.O.T.U. Master Of The Universe! Not to be confused with He-Man Master of The Universe, no I am M.O.T.U. Master Of the Universe and I have been calling myself that for well over 10 years, as my business cards and money clips proudly display. Ask anyone who knows me that’s been my line for a long long time. However over the last week or so I have gotten many calls saying that Jeremy Pivin on the television show Entourage called himself that on a recent episode. Just so we are clear, if you ever hear anyone say, ‘Hey, there goes The Master Of The Universe.’ They are referring to (wait for it) …me.
Sorry, as my friend Peter David says, I digress. Back to the idiot at hand. For those of you living under a rock or living in Atlanta, O.J. (which stands for original jerk) Simpson was arrested over the weekend for – get this-armed robbery, kidnapping and a host of other charges.
And he was arrested in Las Vegas, of all places! What a lot of you may not know is that Vegas has a less than stellar racial past. Oh you may know the glamour side of Vegas, but let me clue you in, Vegas is not the place you want to be arrested if you are black. When black people say ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’ We are talking about bodies.
So, now Mr. Simpson is facing life in prison because of his stupid, STUPID actions in, of all places, Sin City.
You can’t make this stuff up.
When I say stupid, I do mean stupid – as in dim, thick, dense, slow, brainless, din-witted, obtuse, just plain stupid. How did this guy think he could walk into someone’s hotel room with a bunch of guys (some with guns) and rob them? Yes, he says it was his stuff. Yes, it looks like he was set up. Yes, there is a lot more to this than meets the eye.
But no one cares. This is the Big Payback.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
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