Monthly Archive: September 2007

Mad Max Meets Justice League

  • Uncategorized
  • September 20, 2007

brave_bold028_klein-8594486Ha! Got you! No, not Mel Gibson. Well, maybe not Mel GIbson.

We’ve all been hearing about Warner Bros.’s forthcoming Justice League of America movie starring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern and Aquaman. More or less’ who knows until the movie gets made. It’s got a script by Kieran and Michele Mulroney. Well now, according to Variety, it’s even got a director.

George Miller, the director of the three Mad Max movies as well as The Witches of Eastwick and Happy Feet (among others) is going to pilot the League to box office heights.

No word on the availability of the current Superman and Batman, Brandon Routh and Christian Bale, respectively. Variety thinks not, but if Warner’s is carrying a hefty wallet, we might just get Ocean 11 with capes. Perhaps WB will sign their new Wonder Woman (if that movie actually gets made) to the JLA deal as a casting condition. 

I’ll bet Mel’s got George on speed dial.

Variety suggests the movie will be released in 2009; IMDB thinks 2010.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Two More Minxes

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A few months back, I reviewed the second and third graphic novels from Minx (DC’s new line aimed at teenage girls, published in a manga-ish size and format but not otherwise much like manga). I’ve since dug up the first and fourth Minx titles, The Plain Janes and Good As Lily, for another compare-and-contrast.

The Plain Janes was the Minx launch title, back in May, and was the only one of the first wave of Minx books to have any female creators involved. (Which lack, if you recall, caused somewhat of a hue and cry in some circles.) The writer, Cecil Castellucci (that single female creator), is an established Young Adult novelist, and, perhaps because of that, [[[The Plain Janes]]] is the closest to mainstream realistic fiction of any of the Minx books I’ve seen so far.

Our heroine, Jane, is a young teen who lived in “Metro City” until she was caught at the edge of a random bombing, which made her parents paranoid enough to move the family to the suburbs. (Jane is presumably an only child; we don’t see any siblings.) The bombing affected her just as strongly as it did her parents, but in a different way: it shocked her out of her old complacent life (concerned with boys and clothes) and turned her into An Artist. So she resists the urge to fall in with the same sort of crowd she hung out with at her old school, and tries to make friends with a group of outcast girls.

Unfortunately, those girls are straight from Central Casting: the brainy one, the sporty one, and the theatrical one. (There’s even the school’s token One Gay Guy, who gets involved later on.) Worse, their names are all versions of “Jane,” telegraphing the manipulation even further. They’re all decent characters – well differentiated from each other and generally believable – but it didn’t make much sense to me that the three of them would be friends, and each have no other friends, when they have nothing in common but their outcast status. (Then again, I was never a high school girl, and the social structures boys set up can be quite different.)

Our Jane has to work to get the other Janes to like her – she’s pretty and should be popular, so why would she be hanging out with them? – and keeps turning down the friendship advances of the local Queen Bee. But, eventually, her plan comes together, and she recruits the other Janes into her secret organization P.L.A.I.N. – People Loving Art in Neighborhoods – to do various bizarre “art” events secretly around town. They are, of course, the very po-mo kind of art that doesn’t require any ability to draw or paint or otherwise create something specific; it’s all installation-style pieces that only are art because someone says they are.

This leads to the expected, and overwritten, trouble from the authorities, who clamp down hard on any sign of rebellion in their community. (Sadly, this was all done more deftly, and with a lighter touch, in the ‘80s movie Footloose. Yes, it’s that sort of thing all over again.) But, in the end, art, and P.L.A.I.N., prevail.

So The Plain Janes is a bit obvious and a bit too much – at least for me, jaded thirty-something that I am. It may be much more exciting for a teenage girl who hasn’t seen this plot before and doesn’t realize she can pick her friends and do the things she wants to do. And, if so, then it will do its job just fine.

(I don’t have much to say about the art – it’s solid, in a mostly mainstream-comics style, with lots of close-ups on faces. It’s noticeably less stylized than the art in the other Minx titles I’ve seen, which fits this more grounded, mostly real-world story.)

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BIG BROADCAST #100!

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  • September 20, 2007

ez-8792682The Big ComicMix Broadcast hits 100 and we couldn’t be prouder to share the party than with two incredible talents who are each part of ComicMix Phase Two. You saw the previews this week, now listen as Robert Tinnel and Mark Wheatly spill the beans on EZ Street, premiering right here FREE on October 3rd. Plus, we dig up the dirt on the new Superman/Doomsday DVD, cover the rebirth of The  Weather Girls, herald the return of Steve Canyon and trip back to the moment the "Philadelphia Sound" was born.

You did it 99 other times – go ahead PRESS THE BUTTON and make it an even 100!

MariFran O’Neil On The Mend

  • News
  • September 20, 2007

MariFran O’Neil, wife of columnist, comics sensei, and dear friend Denny O’Neill, is recovering from a stroke she suffered late last week.  She’s out of the hospital, in a rehabilitation facility, and we have no doubt that she’ll be out and teaching her students very soon.

ComicMix sends best wishes for a speedy recovery.

ANDREW’S LINKS: Bat-Crime and Bat-Punishment

  • Uncategorized
  • September 20, 2007

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Comics Links

R. Sikoryak’s Dostoyevsky Comics, an adaptation of Crime and Punishment staring a Dick Sprang Batman and originally published in Drawn & Quarterly #3 in 2000, has been posted on the web.

Amazon Daily interviews Nick Abadzis, author of Laika.

The New York Times Magazine last weekend started its serialization of Dan Clowes’s comic Mister Wonderful, in its “Funny Pages” section.

The Baltimore Sun profiles cartoonist Emily Flake.

AnimationInsider interviews manga expert and popularizer Fred Schodt.

The Fresno Bee talks to local broadcaster Dale Berry, who creates graphic novels in his spare time.

New York Magazine has a ten-page excerpt from Gipi’s Notes for a War Story.

Publishers Weekly chatted with David Michaelis about his upcoming biography of Charles Schulz, Schulz and Peanuts.

Publishers Weekly has a preview of Legend of the Dark Crystal, Col. 1: The Garthim Wars.

PW also interviews Jonathan Hickman, author of The Nightly News.

Comic Book Resources chats with Mark Guggenheim about his Oni Press series Resurrection.

To celebrate the publication of their collection Dr. Thirteen: Architecture and Morality, creators Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chang have done thirteen separate interviews, all published the same day. Links to all of them are on Cliff Chang’s blog.

South Carolina’s The State rounds up recent reader reaction to Tom Batuik’s deeply depressing current storyline in Funky Winkerbean. [via Comics Reporter]

Journalista! takes aim at comics’ poster-boy for getting out of the house more often, Dave Sim. (And what is Sim doing these days? Didn’t Cerebus end several years ago now?)

A truck ran into Oni Press’s wall/window, but everyone there is fine.

Wizard interviews Gerald Way, who writes Umbrella Academy (and also has a band or something).

Eye on Comics wonders what happened to the promised Adam Hughes All Star Wonder Woman.

Arowette’s Diary presents the Dan Didio Advisory & Warning System. Is your comic at risk of Rape, Death, or Emo?

The Icarus Comics blog notes that some manga categories (for adults, even!) previously little known here are starting to come out in the US market. The possibly not-so-good news is that they’re having to be in Diamond’s “Adult” section since they actually have sexual content.

Comics Reviews

Bookgasm reviews The Architect, by Mike Baron and Andie Tong.

Los Angeles City Beat reviews Tom Neely’s The Blot.

Hannibal Tatu lists this week’s “buy pile” for Comic Book Resources.

Comics Reporter reviews Al Hirschfeld’s 1951 book Show Business Is No Business.

The Daily Cross Hatch reviews Shannon Wheeler’s Screw Heaven, When I Die I’m Going to Mars.

Comics Worth Reading reviews Fell: Feral City.

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Funky’s Tom Appears For Lisa

  • Uncategorized
  • September 20, 2007

51izhrxpksl-_aa240_-4909308As we noted several months ago, Funky Winkerbean has been going through a major storyline around Lisa, one of the central characters, and her losing battle with cancer. These strips are being collected into a book, Lisa’s Story: The Other Shoe, which will be released next week.

Funky Winkerbean cartoonist Tom Batiuk will be making numerous appearances in October and November in support of this book:. According to the trade magazine Editor & Publisher, Batiuk’s appearances will be October 6 in Akron, Ohio; October 10 in Houston; October 11 in Dallas; October 15 in Beachwood, Ohio; October 17 in Pasadena, Calif.; October 18 in San Diego; October 20 in Hudson, Ohio; October 23 in Clifton, N.J.; October 24 in Wynnewood, Pa.; October 30 in Lyndhurst, Ohio; November 3 in Wooster, Ohio; November 4 in Pickering, Ohio; November. 5 in Cleveland; and November 24 and 25 at the Mid-Ohio Comicon in Columbus. Check your local newspaper for the specific local venue.

JOHN OSTRANDER: The Way I Were

  • News
  • September 20, 2007

spectre_11-2029854For me, it seemed like this week was all about returning home. The news about GrimJack appearing here on ComicMix was broken… well, here on ComicMix. And DC published the first issue of my new Suicide Squad miniseries (Elayne also has a stake in this since her husband, Robin Riggs, is providing wonderful inks over Javi Pina’s pencils for the series). This is my first new issue of Squad in – well, in a long long time.

It’s interesting coming back to a series after a lengthy absence. When I began scripting GrimJack: Killer Instinct a while back, my concern was – would I get Gaunt’s voice right after so long? Not to worry – it was right there – as was Amanda Waller’s over on Squad.

I’ll be writing more about GrimJack as we get closer to the publication date. (October 2, if you’ve forgotten and, by the way, you’ll be able to see it here on ComicMix for free. Always bears repeating.) Today I’m going to talk instead about one other book with which I was closely connected and which, after a lot of thought, I don’t think I’d want to return to on a regular basis.

The Spectre.

Tom Mandrake and I had a longish run on that series which some people at the time said couldn’t be done. For those of you who don’t know the character, he was created in the late 1930s by Jerry Siegel  – co-creator of Superman – and Bernard Baily. Jim Steranko once said the Spectre had the toughest origin in comics – he had to die to get his powers. The Spectre was also the strongest character in the DCU – perhaps in all comics. Only God was stronger and He?She had better be eating His/Her Wheaties.

The concept: the Spectre was Plainclothes Police Detective Jim Corrigan who ran afoul of some gangsters and was dumped into an oil can of cement and dumped in the river. At the gates of Heaven, Corrigan just can’t let it go. The Voice (aka God) lets Corrigan return as a crime fighting ghost who can take an almost human form. His powers were magical – almost divine – and he meted out big time justice. Never more so in a series of stories by Mike Fleischer and Jim Aparo. The vengeance meted out was often horrific.

The Spectre then went through a bunch of different permutations depending on who was writing him when Tom Mandrake and I got him. We had just come off a stint on Firestorm together and were looking for another project and both of us loved the potential of the Spectre. We had very clear ideas of what we should and should not do with him.

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Arrr arrr! A pirate’s been cast as Uhura!

  • News
  • September 19, 2007

zoecingular100x200-7182665zoesaldanaanamaria200x200-6988786While we be on the topic of pirates, we note with pride that Zoe Saldana, the saucy wench who played the pirate Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl has been shanghaied into playing the role of Lieutenant Uhura in the upcoming Starrr… ahem, Star Trek movie. This be accordin’ to the stinkin’ landlubbers over at SciFi.com.

Clearly, a fine and outstanding choice — note that there already be photos of her next to a Cingular logo with a new cell phone, so the endorsement doubloons will be filling her treasure chest for many tides to come.

(Tip o’ the tricorner hat to Lisa Sullivan.)

Oh, wow. Secret Invasion.

  • News
  • September 19, 2007

secretinvasion-9997502Hey, you’ll never guess what Marvel’s doing next year!

Go on, guess!

Did I hear you say "ummmm… it can’t be as easy as another mind-numbing, universe-shaking mega-character crossover, can it?" Of course it can. DC and Marvel have but one thought: between them: "hey, let’s do another mind-numbing, universe-shaking mega-character crossover! The fans love it!"

Sadly, this one comes on the heels of that rarest of all superhero comics events: a mind-numbing, universe-shaking mega-character crossover that actually worked. Mostly. Tony Isabella had a nice review of Civil War, and he says it at his own site.

Oh, this new thing is called Secret Invasion; Bendis is writing it; it seems to have something to do with Spider-Woman mating with Iron Man to create a bunch of radioactively charged exoskeleton robo-bugs that enter your comic book collection and rewrite the continuity-du-jour.

This one’s unique, though. It’s got a TRAILER! Well, at least that’s what Marvel’s calling it. It’s really just PowerPoint with public domain music, but it’ll only take a minute out of your life.

Not counting the NFL trailer that is attached to it.

Related: You might be a Skrull if…

Arrr! It Be Talk Like A Pirate Day!

  • News
  • September 19, 2007

Shiver me timbers, it be that time of the season again — that hallowed day where we be talking like scurvy bilgerats, it be International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Truth be told, mateys, we’ve been a bit busy here to celebrate it, what with us be planning our broadside against the 32-page monthly paper comic that’ll be commencing in a fortnight. The only Gold we’ve been chasing has been the editor in chief. Tis a pity, it is. If only we had something that screamed "pirate!" but tied in with our launch, something… something…

starslayer-006pirateday-6988632

Arr, that be the stuff! Mister Grell, hoist the flag over the Jolly Roger!

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