Monthly Archive: March 2008

‘Doctor Who’ Rescheduled, Russell T. Davies Annoyed

  • News
  • March 29, 2008

Outpost Gallifrey reports that Doctor Who Executive Producer Russell T. Davies has become quite vocal in his disappointment regarding a decision to move the hit series to an earlier timeslot on the BBC, as well as other changes planned for Season Four.

According to various reports cited by the Doctor Who news site, the decision to move the program to 6:20 PM in the weekly schedule, and a push to film in high-definition video, have met with significant opposition from Davies and others involved with the show.

From a Broadcast report posted on the site:

Russell T Davies is predicting that Doctor Who could lose up to 1.5m viewers when it returns in a new 6.20pm slot next month.

The writer and executive producer of the series told the Broadcast television drama conference today that the BBC should maintain the later 7pm-7.15pm slot and the budget for the sci-fi series but it had mucked it up.

The BBC believes the programme would do as well in the new slot, he said. "Well, we’ll see, but I think I’m right."

Not all time travel is welcome.

See what they did with that "time travel" line? Clever.

What does this mean for the American audience? I’m not certain, but it seemed worth noting for all of the Doctor Who fans here at ComicMix. Feel free to discuss in the comment section.

Celldweller and Devil’s Due Remix ‘Halloween’

  • News
  • March 29, 2008

halloween-5514479

For those in search of some appropriate mood music to accompany Devil’s Due Publishing’s Halloween: Nightdance, it sounds like the crew at DDP has you covered.

The publisher recently posted a free download link for a techno/rock/orchestral remix of the original Halloween movie theme, courtesy of  the musician known as "Celldweller" — or maybe it’s courtesy of the artist formerly known as Klayton. I can’t be sure.

Either way, here’s the musician bio from the news section of the DDP site:

Celldweller – the versatile outlet of the artist, performer, producer, songwriter, programmer, and remixer Klayton, fuses the electronics of drum & bass and techno, with rock and orchestral elements, meshing the synthetic and the organic, darkness with beauty, into a cohesive blend entirely its own. Celldweller’s sound has captured the interest of the Film/TV/Video Game industry having licensed every track from the Debut Celldweller album, including credits in James Farr’s Xombified Online Series, recently adapted to comic form by Devil’s Due Publishing.

Credits include: “CSI” (Superbowl Spot), "Spider-man 2,” "Spider-man 3,” “Superman Returns,” “Silent Hill,” “Doom,” "The Last Legion,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Supercross,” “XXX: State of the Union,” “Constantine,” “Catwoman,” “Redline,” “The Punisher,” “Dirt,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Paycheck,” “Timeline,” “Mindhunters,” “National Security,” “Bad Boys 2,” “Crackdown” “The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift,”  “Need For Speed: Most Wanted,” “Project Gotham Racing 3,” “Enter the Matrix” and “XGRA.”

You can download the track via the DDP site.

It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • March 29, 2008

2191_4_03-4722877My Wednesday ritual is pretty well set. I get up early enough to do a few hours of work, then go uptown to volunteer. On my way, I stop at Forbidden Planet so I can pick up the new comics. Since I live in Manhattan, I have my choice of several excellent comic shops. Forbidden Planet is near the 6 train, so that’s where I go (also, excellent service, friendly staff, and loads of prose books along with the comics). I can usually read at least one comic while I ride the train, and sometimes, another one in the playground near the hospital. After my stint is done, I ride home, do some more work, and curl up with the rest of my pile.

This week, because it’s spring at last and the sun was out, I decided to take the 6 train all the way down to Bleecker Street instead of taking the F to West Fourth, so I could do the extra walking in my own neighborhood instead of walking through the black pit of hell that is the lower level of the West Fourth Street Station. Everything is blooming early this year – magnolia trees, daffodils, forsythia, the strawberries on my terrace that reliably bear fruit on Arthur’s birthday – so there is color everywhere. Even Frosty Myers’ wall is back where it belongs, in soothing blues. I realize all this mass transit talk is boring to those of you with cars, but it’s all part of the minutiae of New York that makes this kind of urban living its own micro-organism.

Anyway …

 

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Universities Taking Up Graphic Novels

  • News
  • March 28, 2008

persepolis_cover_big-8717525A couple of stories came out today in university newspapers revealing the continued growth of interest in comic books and graphic novels is beginning to manifest on campuses.

At Louisiana State University, officials selected Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis as the summer reading book for incoming freshmen. The Daily Reveille covers the story:

"It’s a very different choice from what we’ve done in the past," said Sarah Liggett, English professor and Student Reading Program committee chairperson. "It’s a focus on the Middle East, which is certainly very much in the news today, and it’s the first summer reading selection to be created by a woman. You see not only what she felt in the words, but you see it in the pictures."

From the responses in the article, it sounds like the choice is going over much better than at Ithaca College, where the student paper’s editorial board berated the choice of Persepolis on grounds that it wasn’t intellectual.

In other news, Emerson College is considering adding a comics/graphic novel program, according to the student paper there. For now, the college has added some new comics-related courses, which aren’t for credit but instead offer certificates for those who pass the courses. Andy Fish is the instructor.

[Fish] is currently working on a DC comic project illustrating the graphic novel "BATMAN 1939" and his own comic "The Boy Who Wished He Could Fly."

"Who knows if walking among the student body, or hanging out in the Dunkin Donuts on the corner is the next Frank Miller or Will Eisner?," Fish said. "Graphic novels have been gaining respect among the squares, and I think it is great that Emerson is offering this program, and I’m delighted to be a part of it."

Review: ‘Jenny Finn’ and ‘The Stardust Kid’

Boom! Studios has made a name for itself as a comic book version of the Spike TV network, but this week the publisher released two new collections that step away from that formula.

jenny-finn_tpb-1-2427366The first, Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah ($14.99) is a collection of the three original Jenny Finn issues and the all new fourth and concluding chapter. The book is written by Mike Mignola and is his truest channeling of Lovecraft yet. In fact, the story closely echoes one of Lovecraft’s stories (I forget the name) about a fishing town being invaded by mysterious sea creatures.

That’s not to say the story isn’t original – it’s more elaborate and bizarre, with typical Mignola flourishes, like the constant appearance of fish that mutter, "Doom."

The narrative is simple enough – an average Joe finds himself mired in otherworldly terror and tries to fight (and think) his way out of it – but the plot never falls into stereotype and every few pages brings a new surprise.

Troy Nixey served as artist on the first three issues and perfectly captures the ethereal horror of Mignola’s script (and, thankfully, doesn’t ape Mignola’s artistic style). Farel Dalrymple illustrated the fourth chapter, and while I love his work, this probably isn’t the best project for him.

That bit of criticism aside, Jenny Finn is a great piece of haunted fun. And I forgot the best part: plenty of tentacles.

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Marvel Releases ‘Secret Invasion’ Primers Online

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  • March 28, 2008

In its continuing efforts to get readers pumped up for Secret Invasion, Marvel Comics has released two new stories  as digital comics.

From the official press release:

First up from Marvel is the Secret Invasion Saga, which is filled with the history of the Skrulls from their first appearance up to their current Infiltration. Loaded with clues, this is the best primer available for the biggest event in comics this year.

Next, from the creative team behind Secret Invasion, Brian Bendis and Leinil Yu, comes the Secret Invasion Prologue, in which one key member of the Marvel Universe was replaced by a Skrull, an infiltration that will lead to the downfall of S.W.O.R.D.

The Secret Invasion Saga comic was available in printed form if you happened to be at Wizard World LA a couple weeks ago. If you missed it there and still need to know what’s happening in the Marvel Universe before the invasion begins, having these two comics available online in digital form is a cool resource that can tell you all you need to know.

The invasion begins Wednesday April, 2 with the release of Secret Invasion #1.

Michael A. Stackpole Is An Asteroid

  • News
  • March 28, 2008

Science fiction, role-playing game, and comics author Michael A. Stackpole (Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron) has just found out that an asteroid has been named after him. Stackpole reports:

On March 23, 2001, David Healy and Jeff Medkeff discovered an asteroid about a mile in diameter, in the asteroid belt on the Mars side of the solar system. It was designated 165612.

Until today.

Now that asteroid is officially known as Stackpole. The International Astronomical Union approved the designation on March 21.

I am completely blown away. I can remember looking at images of the moon or Mars and seeing features named after famous people. I never figured my name might be up there somewhere. As Phil Plait so aptly notes in the post referenced below, this is a slice of immortality that goes beyond writing books.

If you click on this link, you can see a 3D render map, thanks to JPL, of where Stackpole orbits.

Manga Friday: A Random Walk

  • News
  • March 28, 2008

 This week finds me in near Old-Mother-Hubbard mode, with just a few random old things. But let’s run through them, just because they’re here, and maybe the Manga Gods will smile on us for next week…

Priest, Vol. 1
Min-Woo Hyung
Tokyopop, 2003, $9.99

From the evidence – the creator’s name, and the fact that this reads left-to-right – I deduce that this series is manwha rather than manga, and comes from Korea. (If I’m wrong, someone will let me know.)

In a time and place that’s supposed to be the late 19th century American West – but contains guns from at least fifty years later – the half-doomed ex-priest Ivan Isaacs battles the undead servants of the fallen Archangel Temozarela, with the fate of the whole world at stake.

(Yes, Temozarela. He must be in one of the footnotes to the Bible, since he’s not one of the “Big Three” Archangels. Question for discussion: Is what Eastern comics creators have done to Christianity in their stories equal to, less than, or greater than what Westerners have done to Buddhism and Shintoism? And does the Western infestation of ninjas have any part in this discussion?)

Oh, and our priest hero does this, in this first volume at least, on a train. Badass only begins to cover it. Ivan sold half of his soul to Belial for the power to battle Temozarela’s forces – there might be some political war in hell going on in the background, but that’s not explained in this volume.

What Ivan does is 1) to pump several metric tons of silver bullets into marauding hordes of zombie-like creatures, though, sadly, usually not until they’ve already killed most of the other people in the vicinity and 2) to bemoan his fate and to proclaim loudly that he is still alive and so Belial hasn’t captured him yet.

The odd thing about Priest is that, with its scratchy, blocky art style, overarching gloom, and marauding undead, it feels and looks very much like an independent comic of the mid-’90s; Hyung’s style only looks manga now and then, generally with his female characters. Sure, the big sound effects in Korean characters are a tip-off, but otherwise this looks a lot like a book Slave Labor would have at least thought about publishing in 1996.

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Black Ice: The Return!

  • News
  • March 28, 2008

Black Ice, the action-adventure fantasy by Mike Baron and Nick Runge, returns today with a brand-new chapter.

Neil Kofsky drove his motorbike through an inter-dimensional portal and right onto a battleship that flies through the air.  After dueling with a Prince with an attitude, Neil finds himself (and everyone else on board) attacked by an enemy he doesn’t know and doesn’t understand.  And now ….

Credits: Bob Pinaha (Letterer), Matt Webb (Colorist), Mike Baron (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor), Nick Runge (Artist)

More: Black Ice

 

Photo Gallery: Anime Boston 2008

  • News
  • March 28, 2008

ComicMix reader (and aspiring anime/manga artist) Heather recently sent me a gallery of photos from Anime Boston 2008, heralded as "The Northeast’s Largest Anime Convention." The three-day convention was held held last weekend at Hynes Convention Center.

As anyone who’s attended enough anime, comics or pop culture-related conventions over the last few years will no doubt agree, the anime/manga crowd rarely phones it in when it comes to costumes. Sure, there are always a few kids who slap on a metal-plated Naruto headband and call themselves cosplayers, but by and large, the average anime fan’s costume looks like the product of some serious time and effort.

So, with that in mind, I’ve posted some of the photos she sent me after the jump. Consider it a salute to the cosplayers at Anime Boston ’08 and anime fans everywhere. Heck, I have trouble buttoning my shirt correctly most days — I can’t even imagine crafting some of the outfits in these photos. (more…)

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