We have a special treat today from Bo Hampton. It’s his classic story, Underworked, about a cartoonist and his quest to find love, labor, and a way out of his mother’s basement. If you ever read a comic from the 1990s and wondered how that happened, this story has the answer.
Next week: More Demons of Sherwood
Credits:Bo Hampton (Artist), Bo Hampton (Colorist), Bo Hampton (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor-In-Chief), Tracy Munsey (Letterer)
More: Underworked
Joseph Roland “Joe” Barbera was born on March 24, 1911 in the Little Italy section of New York City. Though he loved drawing from an early age, Barbera put art aside for a more traditional job as a banker.
When the Great Depression hit, his banking job disappeared, however, and Barbera turned back to his first love. In 1932 he joined the Van Beuren Studio as an animator and scriptwriter. When Van Beuren closed down four years later Barbera moved to MGM. In 1938 he first teamed with William Hanna, and their second joint project, the first Tom & Jerry cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, was nominated for an Academy Award.
Hanna and Barbera continued to work together, receiving seven Academy Awards over 17 years for Tom & Jerry. In 1955 they took charge of MGM’s animation division—when it closed two years later they founded their own company, H-B Enterprises, which they soon renamed Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Together they produced the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, and many other great American cartoons. Barbera died on December 18, 2006 of natural causes. He was 95 years old.
As the campaigns continue, ComicMix is determined to ask the questions on everyone’s mind this election year:
Which One is the Skrull?
Are you sure it’s just the one? Why can’t more than one be a Skrull?
If your favorite candidate is really a Skrull infiltrator, are you going to vote for them anyway, or are you going to be racist? What if one’s a Skrull, and the other two are Kodos and Kang?
Give us your opinion in comments, folks — because the electorate must be informed!
Dark Horse Comics editor Scott Allie has an enviable career. As an editor, he’s had the opportunity to work with some of the biggest talents working in comics today. Creators such as Mike Mignola and Joss Whedon are just two of the many superstars he collaborates with on a daily basis.
Over the years, he’s also found time to write a couple comics himself, including Sick Smiles and The Devil’s Footprints. Most recently, Allie’s been hard at work with Mike Mignola on Hellboy and its spin-offs, editing Buffy: Season Eight and also working on another new miniseries based on a different Joss Whedon creation: Serenity: Better Days.
With issue #1 of Serenity: Better Days hitting comic book stores last Wednesday, ComicMix caught up with Allie to get the latest info on the new comic, what’s happening with Buffy: Season Eight, the fan’s reaction to the recent Season Eight revelation and how he collaborates with creators like Mike Mignola and Joss Whedon
COMICMIX: Scott, thanks for talking with us. How you doing?
SCOTT ALLIE: Good, busy.
CMix: For those who don’t know, tell us a bit about your background? How did you get started in comics and at Dark Horse?
SA: I had a job at a literary magazine that paid really well, and it allowed me to set up a self-publishing project back in 1993 and 1994. I did a horror comic called Sick Smiles, and otherwise jazzed around for a while.
I was living in Portland, and doing Sick Smiles caused me to run into a lot of the Dark Horse people. I ran out of money right around the time they were looking for a new assistant editor, so I took the job.
CMix: Did you read comics as a kid? If so, what were your favorites?
SA: I didn’t read a lot of comics as a kid. I remember having an issue of Star Wars and an issue of Man-Thing. I came across some horror comics at a young age.
I loved Spider-man, but purely from the cartoon, the older one with the great theme song. I started writing stories really young, and by fifth grade I’d started drawing stories.
I’d make little books, 20 pages or so, with one drawing and a couple word balloons per page. That was my first foray into comics, I think. They were monster mashes–a combination of Godzilla and Frankenstein, everything I’d see on the "Creature Double Feature" on Channel 56 out of Boston.
I wouldn’t start reading comics on a regular basis until I was about thirteen, when a friend gave me a copy of Frank Miller’s Wolverine miniseries.
CMix: When did you realize you wanted to have a career in comics? Or that you could?
SA: I think in college. I was torn between majoring in literature or fine art, and my sort of mentor, this guy named Robert Smart, encouraged me to combine them to create my own major, design my own curriculum, and major in comics.
That was the first time I started thinking about turning my official focus toward comics. They’d been my passion for a while, but I didn’t see them being remotely practical as far as something to do.
CMix: Once you were working at Dark Horse, what projects did you work on? Was there one in particular that really "made" your career?
SA: Yeah, Hellboy. I got assigned to Hellboy within a couple months of starting, and Mike and I bonded instantly, deeply.
It remains the most significant relationship in my career.
CMix: How did your association with Joss Whedon begin?
Batman Begins and its upcoming sequel, The Dark Knight, are both feature films that deal with Bruce Wayne at the beginning of his career as a crime-fighting detective. But some in the movie audience may be curious about how these rookie years unfolded in the continuity of the comics.
So, here at ComicMix, we’ve put together a timeline of the stories you should read (and the order in which to read them) to learn about Batman’s early days. This list is focused on collected storylines from the single issues and one-shot stories rather than individual issues, and includes what is deemed to be currently in continuity within the mainstream DC Universe (so certain stories such as BATMAN: Year Two are not included). If a story’s place in the greater Batman continuity is uncertain, but hasn’t been directly contradicted by other stories, we’re including it.
Please note that this is focusing on Batman’s early solo years and is, as stated above, a timeline. Therefore stories such as Arkham Asylum and The Killing Joke, while famous, aren’t being included here since they take place much later in Batman’s career.
ADDED NOTE: If you like this, be sure to check out our related article, the Top Six Greatest Joker Victories.
Now let’s begin …
Batman: Year One
This comic also features the reason Bruce Wayne chose a bat as his symbol and his first encounter with Catwoman. The end of this story leads directly into another item on our reading list, BATMAN: The Man Who Laughs.
Batman and the Monster Men
Batman and the Mad Monk
And so we come to the end. It’s taken DC Comics sixteen years to collect all of Grant Morrison’s classic run on Doom Patrol
There was bombast in the air, then, on all sides. Superheroes were long past their days of stopping bank robberies and foiling minor criminals. The era of cosmic threats all the time had been inspired by Secret Wars II
You have to remember that background when you read Morrison’s Doom Patrol, just as you have to remember the stolid seriousness of ‘80s superheroism when you read his Animal Man
Oh, boy… We’d nearly forgotten what we’re in for, and this video reminded us all over again:
Yes, the ComicMix crew will be there in force. Be sure to say hello, ask for autographs, throw fruit, what have you. And if you’re really smart, ask us where to get food outside of the Javitz Food Court.
They say there’s nothing new under the sun. Well, now I’m saying that as well, but I’m saying it about science fiction.
S-F was supposed to look forward and, at its best, teach us something about today’s human condition. You can look forward by looking into the past, but you’re not looking forward by burying your nose in your belly button. Sadly, our popular fiction has been spending the past decade or so snorting lint.
After a lengthy rest, Star Wars returned to us with a three-part prequel renown for its tedium and lameness. Star Trek countered with Enterprise, which told us the secret origin of a starship. It was pretty good – after two exceptionally lame seasons. At least those who hung in there were slightly rewarded. Boosted by the enormous success of the show’s concept (it was the most short-lived of those that followed the original series), now Paramount is polishing up a “major” motion picture about Kirk, Spock, McCoy and friends at boarding school. I think Mickey Rooney and Liza Minelli are playing instructors.
Now we see that our friends at Battlestar Galactica are doing a pilot for a spin-off show. No, make that another spin-back series. Entitled Caprica, instead of capitalizing on all the careful and intricate concepts established in the original series (itself a remake of one of the worst S-F shows of all time), it’s set 50 years prior. The big deal: the Cylons are created. I’ll bet you didn’t know the Cylons were created. Certainly not, if you hadn’t watched either of the original shows. (more…)
I’m still recovering from my yearly giggle-fest as my husband and I spent last night MST-ing the Biblical epic The Ten Commandments, which for some reason was shown on Easter weekend rather than Passover weekend. Always remember, Eliezar, he passed over your holiday! So many great quotable lines in that film. ComicMix columnists have been serving up their own quotables this week as well:
Here at ComicMix, love is not an art to us, it is life to us!
After a week away fighting the March "blahs", we’re back with a few links to enjoy while biting the head off that very special chocolate bunny you got today:
The revamp of Nickelodeon’s websites contines as they add 1,600 new games in the very near future. Of the new games, about 600 will be exclusive, original games to the sites, with the remaining 1,000 coming from outside publishers. (Just to put this in perspective, Nickelodeon’s current library is comprised of 5,000 games). You can find highlights of some the exclusive, original games at Nick.com, TurboNick, Nicktropolis and Nick Junior, where 185-plus games are being added, with a focus on multiplayer, cooperative games such as 3D Nicktoons SlimeBall on Nicktropolis, and an Avatar multiplayer global game set for this fall 2008. In addition, Nick.com will fully redesign its game experience with the debut of a new games landing page. At Nick Junior, some 35 new original preschool games are set to bow including Spin Art, which allows kids to create their art; Diego’s Snowboard Rescue and The Wonder Pets Storybook (end of March).
Meanwhile, NeoPets expands into multiplayer games, which include a new retail convergent element with Key Quest, along with tournaments with the return of Daily Dare and Altador Cup. Neopets’ Key Quest is a new multiplayer gaming and collecting experience tied to Neopets retail product.
Finally, AddictingGames will introduce 75 exclusive self-published and licensed games, along with 600+ new titles from game developers around the world, in 2008.
To help you live through the next four weeks without Lost, <a href=”
here and, in the continuing effort to make us forget we won’t see new episodes until the fall, NBC has posted the new Heroes soundtrack here. Sorry guys. It didn’t work.
To watch the ongoing process of Dynamite Entertainment’s revamp/relaunch of Buck Rogers, go here but keep in mind that new material will be added regularly and to look for a big reveal close to ComicCon.
And if you just plain forgot to go see Britney Spears’ anime/superheroine video for “Break the Ice,” you can still do so, at least for a few more days. Come on — you know you want to!
Not one to put all our colored eggs in one basket, lert’s just say this will be a big week on ComicMix Radio. Starting with our new comics and DVD rundown to our preview of a new independent film set at the San Diego Comic Con. And we get geared up for the return of Battlestar Galactica with our exclusive talk with Executive Producer Mark Verheiden.
Get off that sugar rush and be here on Tuesday!
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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