ComicMix Radio: Two Morrows Celebrates Comics
No matter what era of comics you enjoy, chances are Two Morrows has a magazine or trade PB covering it. We give you a rundown of what’s new and on the way, plus:
- That Captain Action statue finally debuts
- The latest ratings are in for pop culture series
- We have some watercooler stories about new cartoon series you will NOT believe
Kung Fun Magoo? Really! Just Press the Button! And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via
or RSS!
Transcript
Broadcast, 272. ComicMix.com! Keeping Comic History Alive! ComicMix.com! Hi, it's Mike Raub, and 2Morrows is doing their best to not only look back at some of the greats of the comic industry,
but some of the guys that are doing their amazing work you buy every week right now. We'll find out what's coming up from them and more all on the way on… October 11, 2008. ComicMix used! We gave you a sneak peek of this on ComicMix.tv way back in April. Now you can finally own one.
The Captain Action Collectible statue is finally just about ready to be distributed by Sideshow Collectibles. The packaging is very similar to the original Captain Action action figures that were released in the 1960s by Ideal. And it should be available in your local stores in November. You can do a pre-order if you want to right now, because these will be limited at SideshowToy.com. And if you want to check out what the statue looks like, just search on ComicMix.tv here at ComicMix.com.
Some of the new ratings are in for some of our new pop culture shows on TV and cable this season. Cartoon Network's new Star Wars The Clone Wars came in ranked as the most watched series premiere in the history of Cartoon Network. It averaged about 4 million viewers for the first episode. The new show Sanctuary on the Sci-Fi channel drew more than 2.7 million viewers. That's quite a bit for the Sci-Fi channel.
And on kind of a side note, My Network TV had a knockout Friday night, as they premiered a WWE Friday Night Smackdown last week to 3.2 million viewers. If you're a fan of the Saw franchise, well this is good news for you. Saw Mania is coming to the East Coast. At Saw Mania you can get autographs and take photos with your favorite stars from the movies.
See the amazing traps, props and wardrobe as well. Get a photo of yourself inside the legendary Saw bathroom and take a picture with a puppet from the Saw movies. Saw Mania takes place at Boulevard in New York City coming up on Friday, November 14th and Saturday, November 15th. It'll run 1-6 on Friday, 10-6 on Saturday and then again on Sunday the 16th from 10-5. You can buy your tickets in advance and if you do you'll have a chance to see the actors and filmmakers like Tobin Bell,
Shawnee Smith, Betsy Russell and a lot more. Get complete information and even directions on how to get there from just about anywhere at SawMania.com. Jack Black and Angelina Jolie have agreed to return for Kung Fu Panda 2 DreamWorks Animation Sequel, scheduled for release on June 3rd, 2011. It'll be in stereoscopic 3D and be released into IMAX theaters at the time as well.
It'll be written and co-produced by the original people who did Kung Fu Panda. HBO is teaming up with Norman Lear, the guy who did All in the Family a couple of decades ago, for a new drama series called Everybody Hurts. It's set in the 1970s about a family who run a pro wrestling company in New York. So if you're hoping that some of the new programming on the WB.com might be a little more along the lines of Smallville or maybe even Buffy,
well, not yet. Three new original series are set to debut, none of which fit that category. There's High Drama, All Against Oz, which premieres on October the 6th. It's a behind the scenes look at a high school production of The Wizard of Oz, Rich Girl, Poor Girl, an unscripted series from the creators of Laguna Beach,
and Downers Grove, another small town soap opera that premieres in mid-October. All right, here's your water cooler story to take with you to work next week, and believe it or not, no one is going to think you're telling the truth when you repeat it. Right now over in Cannes is MIPCOM. It's a gathering of animators and television executives who get together to plan some different series who are then pitched to the networks for the seasons to come.
And here's some of the ideas that have been out so far, and these are real true ideas. All right, I'm not making these up. How about The Adventures of Brush Lee and Jackie Chain, an animated series about an evil toilet chain, and a heroic brush in a kung fu battle comedy, The Vegetable Wrestling Federation, an animated series about a group of vegetables that gather at the back of a grocery store for underground wrestling matches.
And are you ready for this? Kung Fu Magoo. Yep, Quincy Magoo, Mr. Magoo himself, revived in a new kung fu cartoon series. Hi, I'm Selma Blair, and you're listening to ComicMix. Fanzines have been part of the comic industry well forever, and the closest thing in today's market to those would probably be the stuff coming from tomorrow's.
But you know it really isn't fair to call them fanzines either. These publications, ranging from books and trade paper bags to regular periodicals, are amazingly accurate and cover so much of the industry going on today and in the past. And they do some great special projects like entire books dedicated to some of the legends in the comic book industry, as Eric from 2Morrow explains.
Then there's the regular publications. Then there's the regular publications. One of the latest editions of the 2Morrows lineup is Brick Journal, a regular publication dedicated to LEGOs. Now it may not be as unusual as you think. There's a lot of cool stuff going on in the LEGOs world.
Have you played LEGOs, Batman, yet? Brick Journal has a lot of that material and more, and some special things coming up in the near future. Also, we've got the new Brick Journal magazine, which just started about a year ago. And that's still ongoing and building steam. We should have a new issue. I think it comes out in October or November,
and it's going to have a how-to of how to build a WALL-E. In addition to books like the one dedicated to Nick Cardi, 2Morrows also publishes the Modern Masters series, looking at some of the greats of today's comic book industry. I'm just finishing up the Mike Flug Modern Masters, and that should be out in about a month or so, maybe five weeks. And right after that will be Kyle Baker.
In January will be the Chris Frowse Modern Masters, and then we'll have Mark Buckingham, and probably right after that will be Darwyn Cooke. Okay, here's where it gets personal. My favorite part of 2Morrows are the companion books. If you haven't checked out the All-Star Companion, the Flash Companion, or any of the books dedicated to the Superman stuff, you're missing a whole lot.
Great material from the past, all put together in a place, a lot of which has never been seen before. And what's coming up? We've got one companion coming up, one companion left for this year, that's the Halt Man companion. It's just getting finished up now. It should be out in about five or six weeks. And then we've got the Bat Cave companion scheduled for next spring, early next spring.
So that's finally going to get released. It's been in the talks for a while, and people have been hearing about it for a while. It's finally going to be coming out next spring. That's Michael Urie and Mike Cronenberg, I believe, doing that one, and they've been covering a lot of really cool stuff. It's going to cover, I believe they're starting with a silver age.
I'm not guaranteeing that. I'm thinking they're starting with a silver age and going to the 70s. They've been working on it for a long time, and they've been covering a lot of really cool rarities for the books. More than likely, 2Morrows has something for you. Check it out right now. They're all easily listed and lots of back issues available as well at 2Morrows.com. In to the bookstores we go for the top 20 best-selling graphic novels there.
This is always interesting because it's a totally different audience. It seems to come in and buy the very same product in comic bookstores. Lots of manga here starting at number 20 with Death Note Volume 1 from Fizz. Number 19, Shaman King Volume 18 again from Fizz. Tokyo Pop checks in with the popular Fruits Basket.
This is Volume 20 at number 18 on the list. At number 17, Skip Beat Volume 14 from Fizz. Rosario Vampire Volume 2 is at number 16. At number 15, Wild Ones Volume 4 from Fizz. And at number 14, another Fizz title, Black Cat Volume 16.
A change here at number 13, Batman the Dark Knight Returns, the Frank Miller DC compilation. That's at number 13. At number 12, Cheepa Vampire Volume 10 from Tokyo Pop. Number 11, another mainstay on the list always is Naruto. This is Volume 30.
At number 10, Wanted, No Not Mark Malara. Again another product from Fizz here. At number 9, Batman the Killing Joke, the special edition put out by DC just a few months back. At number 8, The Gentleman's Alliance Cross from Fizz. Very interesting title.
At number 7, Star Wars the Force Unleashed from Dark Horse. At number 6, Loveless Volume 8 from Tokyo Pop. Negemaai I believe is pronounced as at number 5. And at number 4, Bleach Volume 24 from Fizz. Number 3 has Vampire Knight Volume 5 again from Fizz in the top 2 best selling books in the bookstores as far as comics and pop culture go.
At number 2, Naruto Volume 31, the newest one from Fizz. And number 1, Watchmen from DC Comics. ComicMix Radio. ComicMix Timeline. October 11th.
This week when you went down to one of those brand new comic bookstores you found that DC was kind of floundering around a bit in the years right before they decided to do the crisis. You got Batman number 343, Flash was chugging along at number 305, there was GI Combat number 237, Jonah Hex was in at number 56, Brightest Spot of the DC Universe was New Teen Titans that was in at number 15. There was Still Secrets at the Haunted House at number 44 and Brave and Bold at number 182. Over at Marvel, Frank Miller was doing some spectacular things for a little while at least in Daredevil. This time we got number 178.
There was Dazzler number 11, another Bright Spot for Marvel was Moon Knight at issue number 15. Dave Cochran was looking great at Uncanny X-Men number 153. 1981. In the news, Anwar Sadat was laid to rest under a monument in the desert that he loved so well. To avoid a spending wave, President Ronald Reagan ordered the federal government to start using his revised budget right away and experts felt that the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment looked unlikely.
In the movies, well it wasn't a cult classic yet. Heavy Metal though was on the big screen for a little while. Jacqueline Bissette was in Rich and Famous, there was Mommy Dearest with Faye Dunaway. The Postman Always Rings Twice was on the screen for a second time and Burt Reynolds was in Praternity. D.V. Tonight started with episodes of Chips, The Jeffersons, Trapper John M.D. was on again.
Over on CBS, There Was One Day at a Time and right after that… Early to Rise, Early to Bend, And in between I cooked and cleaned and went out of my head. And the Laban sounded a lot like Helen Reddy and Alice. 1981!
On the radio, a guy who'd been bubbling under in the music industry for quite a while working with big names like Patti LaBelle and others but never quite making it. Until he finally got together an album called Street Songs and this was the hit. Here's Superfreakin' Rick James. Every time I meet you, she's alright, she's alright, that girl's alright with me. ComicMix
We'll be back before you know it with a rundown of all the new comics and DVDs and our three best bets for the week and then later on we'll talk to Darwyn Cooke not about his work at DC but about his new IDW project called Parker and this could be the one that breaks all the rules. You don't have to miss that or anything else, check us out and subscribe to us right now on iTunes and check out ComicMix.com with constant news updates and commentary and we'll nudge you anytime anything cool comes along there. Just sign up right now on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. And don't forget free comics to abound, what a good thing to spend a weekend doing catching up on all the new things including the brand new date view of the original Johnson right now on ComicMix and it's free. Talk to you in a couple of days, bye!
