Author: Elayne Riggs

I’ve already spoken about how October is my favorite time of year, what with the baseball post-season and the foliage displays and the crispness in the air and, in 2007, my imminent lifestyle change and ComicMix Phase II debuting. There’s another reason I love this month — it culminates today in one of my favorite secular holidays, Hallowe’en.

[I emphasize "secular" because I distinctly remember when, as I kid, I was blatantly discouraged from trick or treating and otherwise celebrating the day, on the basis of the holiday’s etymological origin being the Christian commemoration of All Hallow’s Eve and therefore the holiday itself must be Christian. This is the same logic used by some fundamentalist Christians to denounce the holiday as Satanic — the flip side of Christian, and therefore Christian as well because non-Christians don’t really have this Satan thing going — because it emphasizes the supernatural. In fact, as with most seasonal celebrations coopted by early Christians, the holiday actually has pagan roots — in this case Samhain — which I’m perfectly fine with honoring, as those ancient nature worshippers may be the closest thing we have to modern sensible secular rationalists. I’m even half-convinced Christmas is becoming okay to celebrate because, despite the name, it’s essentially a corruption of the Saturnalia holiday. But I digress.]

One reason Hallowe’en is so cool for me is because of its emphasis, at least when I was growing up, on being a holiday for kids. As far as I can discern this mentality came about with the holiday’s commercialization (just check out the Wiki on Hallowe’en to see how many modern rituals involve spending money, from parties to costumes to decorations to candy), and of course since hyper-capitalism cannot be confined to just that segment of the population largely dependent upon others’ pursestrings, today it’s big business with "children of all ages." But I still think Hallowe’en has a particular power over children’s sense of wonder about the world around us, whether or not the lines between living and dead, between the ordinary and the magical, can indeed be blurred during the time of year when (the northern half of) the Earth starts preparing for its winter slumber.

So I like to give out comics to those few straggling trick-or-treaters who find their way to the group of houses hidden behind the main road where we occupy our top-floor apartment. Because I believe that, like Hallowe’en, comics still have tremendous appeal to kids, even as hyper-capitalism has led to their greater acceptance by and obsession for many adults. And so during the year I cull the Cartoon Network books from our DC comp boxes and go through the stuff I have from Free Comics Day to see what’s all-ages appropriate.

I do have a bit of a dilemma with the latter, though — I like all-ages stories. Most of the time, I like them more than the teen-targeted or "mature" readers-only books. (more…)

The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed the last of the major castings for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek prequel, scheduled to begin filming next month.

The role of James Tiberius Kirk will be played by Chris Pine (left), and the plum part of Leonard McCoy goes to New Zealand actor Chris Urban (right), known to genre film fans as Eomer in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Other cast members include John Cho as Sulu, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, and of course Zachary Quinto from Heroes as Mr. Spock.  Eric Bana will also appear as the movie’s antagonist, Nero.