Author: Marc Alan Fishman

Spidey-Fans, make sure you’re up Friday morning for a chance to sneak a peek at the upcoming Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark on Good Morning America. The musical, which is rumored to be one of the priciest to swing into the Foxwoods Theatre, opens November 15. Lucky for all us musical theater geeks, director Julie Taymor and Spidey himself, Reeve Carney, will bring a solo song to GMA via a performance at the Hudson Theater, with fans invited to come down for the free show. We television viewers will enjoy a post-performance interview with the director and the authors of the music and lyrics, Bono and The Edge. Word has it that aside from this musical, both men dabble in rock and roll in a quartet by the name of U2.

While most comic fans are skeptical of their favorite web-spinning hero spinning songs and soliloquies on the Broadway stage, stranger things have become a success. Lest we forget, the Evil Dead Musical was damn good. So, before we light our torches, let’s give the ol’ webhead a chance to sing his spandex off.

UPDATE: So, we watched the telecast, action figure firmly placed in our palms, ready to watch our hero make his way to the stage. Would it be webtastic or a kill a little bit of our soul, like One More Day? Let’s let some pasty white people wax poetic first:

A “pop-up book” set? Those costumes? The Swiss Miss? Is this some kind of cruel joke? Is Norman Osbourne financing this play in hopes of murdering the wall-crawler on the stage? Our high hopes haven’t been crushed this hard since the dance sequence of Spider-Man 3: Attack of Emo Parker. And to put the final nail in the coffin? How about a song from the show:

Let’s be honest here. The song is actually catchy. And because it’s being performed with a rock band, with absolutely no context to the final play, we’ve no idea how terrible this will be once it’s sewn into the “pop-up book” scenery and gaudy costumes. Kudos to Bono and The Edge for writing a catchy rock song (a feat that shouldn’t be that hard, given their 20+ years doing it), but frankly we’re scared for the final product. A lanky rock singer running around in a body sock, whilst a cast of dancing, prancing chorusmen flail about over a rock-and-roll score? Someone give us a copy of the “Death of Gwen Stacy” so we can recall the last time Spider-Man was worth our fanfare.

Many days, we will find ourselves in heated debates with the uninitiated when it comes to the general quality of comic books. Yes, super muscular guys in spandex parading around in violent battles with other super muscular guys and overly boobed chicks in impossible costumes isn’t what we’re calling haute artistic visual fiction. But we’ve got those pocket references ready for the nay-sayers, don’t we? Watchmen. Sin City. Maus. Ghost World. Justice League International… And then they drop a bomb on our argument. They’ll reference a comic they heard about on the nightly news, or in the “lifestyles” section of the paper, or from some pinko-liberal-starbucks-blog they read on their iPads whilst they wait for a triple-grande-non-fat-latté. And with the mere mention of that book, our arguments are as potent as a pinch of salt in the ocean.

Now, gentle reader, what book could I possibly reference (without even reading it mind you) to encapsulate the entirety of how low we can go, when it comes to our sequential funny books?

Why, I direct you to Bluewater Comics’ Female Force: Betty White.

Yup. The fine folks behind the Justin Bieber, Sarah Palin, and forthcoming Fame: The Cast of Glee comic books is releasing a biographical comic book about America’s favorite only living Golden Girl, Betty White. Now, before you ignite your flaming arrows, let me be clear: I love Bette White. She was hilarious in the aforementioned ‘Girls, as well as numerous other sit-coms. Her recent turn as Facebook-demanded Saturday Night Live Host was one of the better shows of recent memory. Hell, even her cameo in last week’s Emmy show was adorable. But seriously… a comic book bio? Allow me to fire up the rant and raving engine.

(more…)

Frequent commenter and song-craftsman Russ Rogers tipped us off to a little contest he put together, and folks, it’ll slay you.

For those in-the-know (and those not…) Mark Wheatley and M.J. Butler have been toiling away at an homage to Conan and all things barbarian with their new project, Skultar the Unconquered! In viral barbarian fashion, Mark and M.J. decided on a great way to gain some much needed funding to get their bloody pet project off the ground (you did read Glenn’s article on just how much it costs to put out a book these days, did you not?). For various contributions to the project, you can get a slew of special prizes… ranging from exclusive behind the scene updates, signed Frankenstein Mobster comics, to the bigger prizes, like limited editions of the printed Skultar comic (with signed book plate!) to our personal favorite: being drawn into Skultar to be maimed, slaughtered, or otherwise killed… along with a signed death certificate and acknowledgment in the final book! Who doesn’t want to be vivisected in 4 colors by a master like Mark Wheatley? We thought so.

That brings us to Russ Rodgers, and the White Elephant Music Club! Starting today, everyone is welcome to enter the Skultar Sword and Sorcery Song Challenge! The rules are simple: Write a song, featuring lyrics about swords, sorcery, and other savage goodness. It can any genre, any style. Full band? Rock out. Solo acoustic? Folk it up. Bolivian flute and rap combo? The weirder the better. Write, record, and share your creation with the White Elephant Music Club on Facebook, and you’re entered. Want to increase your chances of winning? It’s simple: Mention Skultar in the lyrics! Sounds simple? We know. Want more points? Make some “conversion van quality” album art for your song. Submit a .jpg of your art with said song, and you’ll get some more bonus points. Want even more points? Record a music video for your song! Bam. More points. Want yet even more points, you grade grubber? Word is that if you promote your song and the contest on your own facebook / myspace / website / neighborhood juice bar… you’ll nab a bloody carcass full of bonus points! Judges for the contest will weigh your song-craft, bloody lyrical content, and add up your bonus points. The song’s are due September 24th, with the winner being announced September 30th.

For full details on the contest, do yourself a favor and click on over to the White Elephant Music Club page.

For more details on Skultar, and all of his bad-assery, click on over to his website before he smites you.

Now, all you rockin’ ComicMixers… plug that old Strat into your Marshall half stack. Hit that fuzz pedal and overdrive. Crank the volume to 11, and sing your heart out… before Skultar cuts it out from your girly chest.

Well, my loyal ComicMix fans, it seems you respond to me when I get snarky. So, I figure if Daniel Tosh can rip off Web Soup and be popular, why can’t I? Sure, I’m not standing in front of a green screen, making fun of YouTube clips, or filming it all in front of semi-drunk fans who thought they had tickets to the Daily Show… but hey, I can totally make off-hand comments when people put pictures in front of my face. Case in point? Everything the Source touts as being “Cryptic”. See example A and B. But I digress! On to today’s fun. We found this image thanks to the ‘Obvious Winner‘ blog, and couldn’t help ourselves.

• Look what poor Wally West has to do now that Barry and the “Silver-Age Only” Justice Leaguers buried him in backups.*
• Hey, no wonder Jim Parsons won that Emmy. He used his Flash costume to garner votes… that cad.
• Sorry, all you Ethiopians, Kenyans, and Nigerians… y’all ain’t got nuthin’ on the Speed Force.
• Actually, come to think of it, thanks to Flash: Rebirth, we don’t even know how the damned “Speed Force” works anymore. And when we called Mark Waid for clarification, he only tried to sell us a copy of Irredeemable.
• Just to be a jerk about it, the Flash waited 3 hours, 32 minutes and 13 seconds after they fired the starting gun to begin running. He still won by 48 minutes.
• Not pictured here, but who’s also running in the race in an attempt to stay fresh in readers’ minds? Max Mercury, Impulse, Kid Flash, Jesse Quick, and Wally’s one kid who isn’t Impulse…who no one will care about until he turns into a Rogue, which is bound to happen since he had his power siphoned off by his greedy sister. And he’s part Asian.
• Flash Fact: running in 90-degree heat in a bright red costume with only his face exposed equals bugs in your teeth and metahuman-level BO.
• We were sure this was Wally West, but after a careful look at the bright red suit and full-circle lightning belt, this is indeed Barry Allen. Turns out he thought this was another “Flash vs. Superman” charity race. Silly Barry, fun comics are for kids–from the 70s!
• In accordance with his new M.O. of “causing all the trouble in Barry Allen’s life,” the original Reverse Flash is waiting at the 2-mile marker with a cup of water to give to Flash. Little does Flash know…the water is stale and lukewarm. Bwa ha ha ha!
• Because he’s still not “with the times,” Flash was nearly laughed out of the marathon for using his original Walkman, loaded with a cassette of “We Built This City”.
• Flash Fact 2: Barry uses Crisis on Infinite Secrets Antiperspirant (TM). Strong enough for a woman, but made for a boring relic, brought back because Geoff Johns can do no wrong.

Well, that ought to rile up some of you fine readers! Feel free to disagree in the comments below.

• We know that the Justice League contains plenty of non-Silver Age leaguers right now. But trust us, Hal, Ollie, and Barry sat in a diner four years ago and decided Kyle Rayner, Wally West, Conner Hawke, and Roy Harper should take a break. It’s not like Hal, Ollie, and Barry had 20 or so years to gain a fan base.