Monthly Archive: March 2008

ComicMix Broadcast Blog: Indie Online and New York Comic Con

  • News
  • March 9, 2008

Our process here is simple – at the end of every weekend we clear off our desk and give you the links for things we’ve covered recently on ComicMix Radio. Ready to click?

Add Jonathan Hickman’s  all new miniseries, Pax Romana, to the list of cool indie comics now available online. Here is the first issue. Jonathan hopes it inspires you to go seek out the second issue which hit comic stores last week.

ABC announced the creation of Stage 9 Digital Media, a separate creative studio dedicated to producing original series for the Internet. Their  first project, Squeeges, is available here . The 10-episode series was created by a comedy troupe that calls itself "Handsome Donkey." New episodes  will appear on ABC.com and on YouTube each Monday and Friday. Other projects in the works include a sci-fi thriller called Trenches from Shane Felux (creator of fan film Star Wars: Revelations). Meanwhile, more Hollywood talent is jumping to the online world. Actress Justine Bateman (Family Ties), writer/producer Jill Kushner (The Ellen DeGeneres Show), Peter Murrieta (Wizards of Waverly Place) and Alan Sereboff (Snowblind) are working on an original web video portal.

Get ready for a big career move as cable network Chiller is once again hosting the "Dare to Direct Contest" where fans are invited to write, produce and submit short horror films. Prizes and the chance to be featured on Chiller’s 2008 Dare to Direct to Direct Film Festival on Halloween night will go to the finalists and winners. All contest rules and information can be found at Dare2Direct.com.

Michael Agrusso, comic book action figure director, has put together a trio of videos to help promote the New York Comic Con. See them here. Meanwhile, the NY Con itself has produced new guest lists that include a huge Artist Alley, reserved for comic book and pop culture creators — both legendary as well as emerging — and including Mark Buckingham, C.B. Cebulski, Colleen Doran, Danny Fingeroth, Keith Giffen, Bob Layton, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Monte Moore, Rags Morales, John Romita, Jr., Jim Shooter, and Jim Valentino. New additions are added almost daily and the complete listing is available.

This week on ComicMix Radio, find out a few interesting tidbits about the upcoming end of DC’s weekly series Countdown from the guy at the center of it all, Keith Giffen, plus some interesting notes from MegaCon, the list of new comics and DVDs previewed, and more.

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No, You’re Outta Order…!, by Ric Meyers

  • News
  • March 9, 2008
 
sleuth-5977955DVD special features are an invaluable tool for aspiring filmmakers. In addition to the discs that let you reedit sequences, there are many who simply present the filmmakers’ points of view in such a clever, informative, interesting, and edifying way that volumes can be learned with even a cursory viewing.
 
Cases in point: this week’s selections – both scheduled to break into home entertainment sites and shops this coming Tuesday. First there’s Sleuth, a fascinating but ultimately unnecessary remake of the original 1972 movie adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s hit Broadway who-what-why-where-dunnit. Not that you could blame anyone involved for wanting to be a part of the action. First they get the two movie Alfies, Michael Caine and Jude Law, to star, then get award-winning playwright Harold Pinter to adapt the screenplay, then secure master showman Kenneth Branagh to direct.
 
Only one problem … like Presumed Innocent before it, the pulpy delights of Sleuth don’t  really benefit from grade A veneer. At its heart, it’s an old-fashioned, now somewhat wheezy, puzzle pic. But that’s just the movie. It’s the extras on the disc that make this purchase worthwhile. The “making of” doc is fine, but nothing extraordinary. The short “Make-up Secrets Revealed” featurette is okay, although abrupt. But the commentaries really deliver the goods.
 
If you read the back cover, it gives the impression that there is one commentary with director Branagh and stars Caine and Law. But actually there are two commentaries: one with Branagh and Caine, and the other with co-star/co-producer Law. That makes all the difference, because the play and films are a two-man show. The whole plot is predicated on which man’s point of view you take or believe. So it’s inadvertently brilliant that you listen to Caine’s p.o.v. on one track, and Law’s on another. You not only appreciate the movie’s story, but the making of the movie’s story, from their two different, unique, points of view. And Branagh is no slouch either in the creativity department, either.
 
Besides, I love Michael Caine’s work, and the commentary allows him to be there in the room with you, having a pleasant (albeit one-sided) chat about film, life, acting, and et al. The fact that Caine was also in the original 1972 version, playing the Jude Law role, is just icing on the cake. 
 

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On This Day: Rick Burchett

  • News
  • March 9, 2008

Comic book artist Rick Burchett was born in 1952. He originally worked in advertising in St. Louis, Missouri but was always a comic book fan. In the early 1980s he switched to comics professionally and worked for several smaller comic book publishers before joining DC.

His first DC title was Blackhawk, but that was quickly followed by Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and others. Burchett has won two Eisner Awards, for his art on The Batman and Robin Adventures and Batman: The Gotham Adventure.

His most recent work has been on Marvel’s She-Hulk.

 

Allan Turner’s Folklife Treasures, by Michael H. Price

  • News
  • March 9, 2008
 
roun1866_cover-1074035The measurable results of bare-knuckled research, like gold and luck, will turn up where you find ’em. Folks often think of cultural research in academic terms – the ivory-tower stereotype, alone in the realm of uninterrupted thought and empirical fact-sifting, or the aloof egghead at large amongst the tribes – but a truer basis must rest with the very folks whose thoughts and dreams and deeds form the foundations of any popular culture.
 
Or should the term be populist, as opposed to popular, culture? No matter – the root word means “of the people,” in any event. And some of the most lasting such research has come from the efforts of working-civilian folks whose interest in the down-to-earth lives of other folks drives them to venture among the masses with a companionable attitude, laden with note-pads and recording devices, to take down impressions for the long term. (Pete Seeger has a good term for such excursions, research-driven or not: “a political vacation.”)
 
The Allan Turner Collection at the University of Texas provides a memorable example of this people-to-people imperative. The namesake of the archive is a news-biz colleague of long standing, and several of these conversational interviews date from a collaborative push that Turner and I accomplished during the 1970s and ’80s. 
 
Deep-rooted sources of this influence include Thomas Edison (1847–1931). Eager to popularize and perfect his version of the 19th-century phonograph, Edison reconciled note-taking anthropological research with sound-recording technology by sending crews far afield, into the streets, to capture the crowd noises and pushcart-vendor cries of the turning of a century.
 
Then, in a more focused campaign of the early-middle 20th century, the father-and-son team of John and Alan Lomax concentrated upon the preservation of American folk music – starting with the songs of prison inmates and field-hands in the Deep, Deeper and Deepest South. Alan Lomax (1915–2002) helped in particular to forge new commercial possibilities for traditional folk-singing during the 1950s and ’60s – advancing a Voice of the People urgency during the reactionary post-WWII years, on the one hand, and arguing the case for a purer folkloric expressiveness during the 1960s’ craze for a more commercialized dilution of folk-singing.
 

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The Science of Comics: Batman’s Gliding

  • News
  • March 8, 2008

The Dark Knight is overlooking the city from the ledge of a towering skyscraper when he spies a violent crime occurring in the streets below. Without even the hint of a pause, he jumps off the top of the building and uses his his outstretched cape to swoop down onto the crowd of evil-doers.

That familiar scene has been one of the staples of comic books for which readers have long suspended disbelief. But maybe fiction isn’t too far from reality. Could this be done? The ComicMix mythbusters say yes!

How, you ask? Well, just watch this footage of a mountain wingsuit. Substitute the gothic architecture of Gotham City for the mountains, and you have one impressive, bat-shaped figure ready to glide down from the night sky and strike fear into the hearts of a superstitious, cowardly lot of criminals.

Warner Bros. Acquires Rights to ‘Bone’

  • News
  • March 8, 2008

Warner Bros. has plenty of comic book properties of their own to adapt, given that they own DC Comics, but apparently they want a few more. The studio has optioned the rights to adapt Jeff Smith’s Bone series of comics into a feature-length film.

Smith will serve as executive producer on the film, while Dan Lin, who has worked on such films as The Departed, TMNT, Alexander and 10,000 BC, will produce.

Whether or not the adaptation is live-action or animated will be determined by meetings between the filmmakers.

Previously, an adaptation of Bone was in development by Nickelodeon Films, but the project fell through due to the direction of the project and Smith’s desire to not exclusively aim the film at children.

(via Hollywood Reporter)

ComicMix Radio: Mark Evanier Knows Jack

One of the best surprises in the stores this week was Mark Evanier’s long-awaited Kirby: King Of Comics biography of Jack Kirby, which is the latest step in his longtime association with the King. Mark gives us the story behind the book in an excerpt from an interview you can read on Monday here at ComicMix, plus:

— Wizard #200 – confusing? We set you straight!

— Marvel sells out and DC reduces prices

—  NY ComicCon’s Guest List grows

— Stan Lee recreates some old magic

—  Not to be outdone, there’s a brand new trivia question and another chance to grab an exclusive Graham Crackers Comics variant by e-mailing us at: podcast [at] comicmix.com

Kirby Sez Don’t Ask – Just Press The Button

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-1435903 or RSS!

 

Marvel Comics ‘Who Do You Trust?’ – The Video

  • Uncategorized
  • March 8, 2008

Sure, there’s probably been a few too many images hitting the ‘Net of late featuring your favorite Marvel characters looking like Skrulls. But even though they’re pushing the point a bit, Marvel and this upcoming story arc still have my attention — a fact I’m sure they’re cheering about over at Marvel HQ.

Marvel continued peeling back the layers of their "big event" onion (and abusing the "who/whom" grammar rules) this week with a new "Who Do You Trust" video posted on Marvel.com. Instead of Skrullified images of Marvel heroes, this time around we’ve got a grainy, "Blair Witch"-style video of what appears to be someone (probably an intern, since they won’t let him turn on the lights) going through a whole lot of trouble to see those very same photos Marvel’s been sending to anyone with a valid email account — as well as an unidentified dossier and a recording of someone reiterating the point that some of Marvel’s heroes just aren’t what they appear to be.

The "Secret Invasion" continues!

 

On This Day: Zatara the Magician

  • News
  • March 8, 2008

zatara-2548297

Giovanni “John” Zatara was born today in 1919 and by his mid-20s had a successful career as a stage magician while concealing an awesome secret—he could do real magic!

Zatara was descended from the Homo Magi, a race of magic-wielding humans, and learned the secrets of harnessing that power—speaking backwards—by reading the diaries of his direct ancestor, Leonardo Da Vinci. Zatara used his magic to help people between his shows, and during World War II he was part of the All-Star Squadron.

His daughter, Zatanna, became both a stage magician herself and a superhero, fighting for a time as part of the Justice League of America. Zatara gave his life to save her when they and several others fought the demonic Great Evil Beast.

Still The One, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • March 8, 2008
 
uncle-logo-1-9378389Last week, I pulled a muscle in my back.  This event, though rare, is not unknown; my back will hurt me every other year or so.  I should know the steps by now – hideous, agonizing pain, worse than any other person ever born has ever endured (because it’s happening to me), rest and recuperations, which includes excruciating guilt about suspending my workouts while the muscle recovers.  In a week or so, the pain will be gone and I’ll forget about it until the next time.
 
For now, though, I can’t sit down or stand up without an up-close-and-personal insight into how the muscles along the spine interact.  And every twinge reminds me that I’m no longer eleven years old.
 
For many people, an adult child, monthly condo payments, and the occasional hot flash might be enough to convince them that they were mature adults.  To me, these are just distractions from my real life.
 
In many ways, being an adult today is like the fantasyland I imagined as a child.  There are comic book stores, full of current comics, amazing toys and books about my favorite old television shows.  A few blocks from the comic book store, there’s a costume shop that’s open all year round, not just at Halloween.  There are candy stores, bookstores, bagel shops and playgrounds all over the place.  In a few weeks, it will be spring and I can roller-blade again.
 

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