ComicMix Radio: Zombies 101
Pop culture loves zombies, yet did you ever consider the problems faced by the actors behind the make up. Making a living by playing dead ain’t easy, as Sherman Howard (Day Of The Dead) and Reggie Bannister (The Rage) tell us, plus: Robotech moves closer to the movies
New Heat Miser for the holidays!
W meets Stan Lee
And what’s the connection with Lex Luthor and a certain zombie? Find out when Press the Button!
or RSS!
Transcript
Broadcast 290 3, 2, 1 ComicMix.com It is Zombie 101 ComicMix.com
Hi, it's Mike Raub. Everybody loves a good undead guy. But how do these guys do it? I mean, how tough is it to be an actor playing somebody who's, well, not really alive? We talked to a couple of guys that have done it best, and we share those secrets right from the undead. All coming up on November 22nd. 2008 ComicMix News
Alfred Goh and Miles Molar, the guys who were originally behind the beginnings of Smallville, are now going to write Robotech for Warner Brothers. It's the adaptation of the highly popular 80s anime classic. Robotech was a 1980s cartoon. Of course, it was done from Harmony Gold and made big noise here when it was syndicated on television in the 80s in the US. Toby McGuire is among the people who are producing this film. Lawrence Kasdan also was reported to be involved. However, right now it looks more like it's a Goh and Molar project.
The guys, of course, were like we said behind Smallville in the early days. They also were involved with The Mummy, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and Spider-Man 2. More Holiday Fair coming to TV. Some original ones this year, including a Miser Brothers Christmas. It's a new stop-motion animated holiday special. It premieres on the 13th of December, an ABC family, part of their big 25 days of Christmas programming event. I'm sure you've already figured out it is based on the characters from the original Rankin Bass classic, The Year Without a Santa Claus.
And of course, it features the return of Mickey Rooney as the voice of Santa Claus, as well as George S. Irving as Heapmizer. It was produced by Warner Brothers Animation as well. Meanwhile, Boomerang is going to celebrate a little sooner. Thanksgiving Day will be the day they air the Hanna-Barbera 1972 animated holiday special, The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't. It's something that hasn't been seen on TV in quite a while. It airs on Thanksgiving Day next Thursday, the 27th at 10 a.m. and again at 8 p.m. on Boomerang.
And not to be outdone, Playhouse Disney begins Snow Day Saturdays, running every Saturday in the month of December. Starting on December the 6th, it runs from 6 a.m. to 12 noon on the Disney Channel. It will feature holiday and winter-themed episodes of most of their regular series, including brand new ones of the Mickey Mouse Club, Imagination Movers, the Leinsteins, and the TV premiere of My Friend's Tigger and Pooh Super Sleuth Christmas Movie. On the Disney Channel.
Those Marvel anime series that you've heard about, especially Wolverine and Iron Man, are now going to be distributed all over the world by Sony Pictures. We should hear more about that and where you'll be able to see them sometime in the weeks to come. Well, you saw it on ComicMix this week, but we have to make a note on it as well, because it is well deserved. Stan Lee was awarded the National Medal of Arts by the President and Mrs. Bush. Earlier this week in the White House, the Medal Awards were managed by the National Endowment for the Arts,
and recipients are based on their contributions to the creation, growth, and support of the arts in the U.S. There were nine recipients, including Stan and those other recipients, including actress Olivia de Havilland from Gone with the Wind and jazz musician Hank Chung. Counting them down, ComicMix Radio! Answer Report Card Time again for the comics and graphic novels.
These are the ones that did the best in the comic stories during October. We'll start our Top 20 in the graphic novel range, and it begins with Why the Last Man, the deluxe edition hardcover at number 20 from DC. Number 19, Ultimate Fantastic Four, number 11 in that trade paperback series. At number 18, Three Lanterns Revenge, the trade paperback. Count down the final crisis. The third trade paperback in that series is at number 17.
At number 16, Adam Warren's Empowered, volume number four. At number 15, The X-Men Trade Paperback, Messiah Complex. At number 14, from Vertigo, the Northlanders trade paperback, the very first one in that series. Number 13 has the Punisher Max trade paperback. It is number 10 in that run. Legion of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the Black dossier in the trade paperback form, finally.
And number 12 is where it lands on the chart. Alex Ross's Justice miniseries, the second volume of the trade paperback collection of that, is at number 11. At number 10, The Savage Sword of Conan, Redone and Repackaged by Dark Horse. There are four so far in that run. This is number four that hits number 10 on the chart. At number nine, All of the X-Men, volume number 19, The Absolute Power.
Number eight, Warren Ellis' Etheric Mechanics graphic novel. At number seven, Ex Machina, the seventh trade paperback in that run. At number six, surprisingly down a little bit, The Watchmen trade paperback from DC, the latest printing there. Number five, The Dark Tower Long Road Home hardcover. At number four, Serenity, Better Days of Trade Paperback.
At number three, The Boys, volume three, the trade paperback collection from Dynamic Forces. Number two, The Marvel Zombies trade paperback. At number one, the new collection from DC, it is the Joker hardcover, came out a couple of weeks ago. Best-selling graphic novel in the comic book stores in October. On the comics side, starting at number 20, it's Detective Comics number 849, an important part of the Batman R.I.P. storyline.
Probably going to be a lot of those in the top 20 in the weeks to come. At number 19, X-Men Legacy number 217. Amazing Spider-Man 575 comes in at number 18, and then Amazing Spider-Man 574 at number 17. Number 16, Astonishing X-Men Ghost Boxes number one, that two-issue miniseries that began a few weeks back. Number 15, The Justice Society of America number 19, part of the Kingdom Come storyline.
At number 14, Captain America number 43. Number 13, best-selling comic last month, Final Crisis Rage of the Red Lanterns number one. At number 12, also from DC, Justice League of America number 26. Thor number 11 hits at number 11, and then we break into the top 10 with Justice League of America number 25. At number 9, Uncanny X-Men number 503.
At number 8, Amazing Spider-Man number 573, the end of the New Way to Die series. At number 7, Astonishing X-Men number 27. Number 6, Mighty Avengers number 19, the first of the Secret Invasion tie-ins on the chart. At number 5, New Avengers number 46, also a Secret Invasion tie-in. At number 4, the one before the big one, Batman number 680, part of the R.I.P. series, and a very important piece of that storyline.
At number 3, Hulk number 7 from Marvel. Number 2, best-selling comic, Final Crisis number 4 from DC. At number 1, again, Secret Invasion number 7 from Marvel. Hey, playing dead ain't easy, just as some of the guys who do it for, well, living. For example, where did they get their inspiration to create these roles?
Sherman Howard, who's best known as the classic bub in George Romero's Day of the Dead, says he starts with one of the smallest and most innocent sources. It's kind of a complicated answer, it really comes from two different places. First, from George Romero, who suggested that he wanted them to have a certain infant-like quality. So I spent some time looking at babies, newborn babies. I happened to have a friend at the time who just had a child, and I watched the way the baby moved.
And it was really evident if you ever watch a baby, a newborn infant. The deal is, they have all this brand new equipment, and they don't know how it works yet. They just haven't, their neurons haven't made all the connections so that they can control what their fingers do, and how their hands move, and my hand coordinates, and all that. And then from there, he makes it personal.
Any role I play, I just think this is just acting rule 101, is the question that you have to ask yourself over and over and over, 10,000 times, moment to moment, and overall as you're assessing the script, is what would really happen. What would really happen in real life, given the circumstances of this story, were true, were actual, were factual, what would really happen? And the question is, if I'm composed of dead flesh, and yet somehow it still sort of works, the question is, how well would it work, and how will it work, and what would that feel like, and what would that be? And that's what I try to approximate.
What's been a trivia, did you also know that Sherman was the very first guy to ever play Lex Luthor on television in the 1980s Superboy series? Meanwhile, Reggie Bannister, star of the Phantasm series, got the change to switch from hero to the undead in The Rage, and he loved every minute of it. You know, over the last few years, I've had the opportunity to really stretch as an actor and play a lot of different characters that were way, way far away from Reggie in the Phantasm series. And this was one of them. This character, it was kind of like a Chevy Chase character, actually, who turned into this raging creature. And I just thought the juxtaposition of the real character to the enraged character, the enraged character, was just a fabulous idea.
You can grab all the undead action coming up on Thanksgiving Day and a 24-hour marathon of movies like Day of the Dead, The Rage, Resident Evil, Dead Alive, Return of the Living Dead, 1, 2, and 3, and a lot more. It's all on Monsters A.D. Check with your local cable listings to make sure you get it and get more information at monstershd.com. It was the end of a month down at the spinner rag of the drugstore that bet another issue of action comics and stories like Superman Meets the Goliath Hercules and Supergirl hanging out with the super-tot from nowhere. Adventure Comics gave us another Legion of Superhero story. There was Detective Comics with Batman and Robin and the Zodiac Master. We also got an issue of Sea Devils. Showcase number 48 had a Cave Carson story in it. Over from Marvel, we got Avengers number 3, which had the Avengers, the Hulk, and Submariner all for a mere 12 cents.
X-Men number 3 had the blob. And from Archie, we got the last time we'd see one of the superheroes in the PEP series. PEP number 168 had the very last of the Jaguar stories. 1963 Welcome, Gildef, the Assistant Press Secretary. What the presidential party made the announcement just a few moments ago. Gildef started off saying, John F. Kennedy died at approximately one o'clock central standard time today here in Dallas. Reporters ask him for other details, he said. I have no other details. By mid-afternoon on this day, all three television networks went into full wall-to-wall coverage.
Movie theaters and other entertainment venues all over the U.S. were closed for the weekend. And for the next 72 hours, the U.S. and the world sat and watched. Anybody seen my old friend John? Can you tell me where he's going? Back at you in a few days as we get ready to hit the comic book stores just before Black Friday. Lots of specials and lots of surprises coming up. You don't have to miss any of them. Subscribe to us right now on iTunes. It's even easier. You can download us right directly to your iPhone. Meanwhile, we'll update you too on everything going on at ComicMix via Twitter, MySpace or Facebook. All you have to do is ask.
Free comics too and you're going to have a few days off to relax, have a little turkey. Why not enjoy some freebies? Got plenty up right here, including another episode of the original Johnson. More on The Pilgrim from Mark Ryan and Mike Grell and lots of other things in the archives. And again, they're all free at ComicMix. Talk to you in a couple of days. Bye!
