Author: Mike Gold

This is the week the teevee broadcast networks announce
their fall schedules at their fabled “Upfront” presentations to advertisers –
well, the first drafts of their fall schedules. Starting with Fox.

Len Wein and Carmine Infantino’s DC series The Human Target has been picked up (it was on network a couple decades ago in a forgettable series staring Rick Springfield and Clarence Clemons); it will occupy the coveted spot after American Idol on Wednesdays. Past Life, a series about a psychic
detective agency, will hold the same spot on Tuesdays. Slotting after Idol means both will be mid-season shows A new sitcom will be added to Fox’s schedule, Sons of Tucson will be plopped in the middle of their Sunday
animation block, replacing King of the Hill. Another sitcome, Brothers, has been given a 13 episode order.

Fox has picked up House, 24, Bones, Fringe, Brothers, ‘Til Death, The Cleveland Show, So You Think You Can Dance and Dollhouse.

In other Upfront news, ABC has approved pilots for a new
drama starring Dean Winters and Sam Neill called Happy Town and a comedy starring Courteney Cox called Cougar Town (bet you can guess what that one’s about). They’ve also picked up a second season of Castle as a mid-season replacement, a new V series, along with The Deep End, Jerry Bruckheimer’s The Forgotten (sort of a Without a Trace, but with amateurs), and Eastwick, an adaptation of the hit movie The Witches of Eastwick. They’ve got a comedy going starring Kelsey Grammer called Hank and another sitcom called The Middle. ABC also renewed a version of Scrubs, although much of the ongoing cast is likely to disappear after the first six episodes. True Beauty and Better Off Ted have also been picked up.

CBS has picked up an NCIS spinoff, a medical drama called Three Rivers and The Good Wife starring Julianna Margulies.

IDW Publishing, home to Star Trek, 30 Days of Night, Transformers, Doctor Who, G.I. Joe, Fallen Angel, Locke and Key, and ComicMix’s upcoming line of print graphic novels and comics, today announced the 10 year old company hit the #3 spot in the monthly Diamond sales figures. That places them ahead of Image Comics and Dark Horse Comics, a remarkable achievement for a "back-of-the-catalog" publisher.

"This is a huge milestone for us, and the culmination of a decade of hard work by the many different people to have contributed to IDW over the years," IDW CEO Ted Adams stated. "This is clearly a great beginning to our second decade."

Last week, the company received no less than five Eisner nominations, and is just coming out with their 10th anniversary history. It’s been a hell of a week for the San Diego based publisher, and to celebrate the staff went to the Los Angeles Dodgers / San Diego Padres baseball game.

"IDW has always focused on producing quality comics and books, and it’s gratifying to see fans enjoying our books so much," IDW publisher and editor-in-chief Chris Ryall noted. "There is definitely a lot more great things to come for the company and our readers," no doubt referring to the upcoming release of GrimJack: The Manx Cat, Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes of Eden, and Demons of Sherwood.

Among other ComicMix projects, of course!

According to the London Daily Telegraph, a long-submerged Dalek was discovered among a ton of rubbish by a team of volunteers who were cleaning out a junk-filled pond.

Well, actually, just the head and neck pieces. The all-important eye-stalk was intact, but one of the dome lights was smashed. They’ve been looking for the rest of the Exterminator amongst the muck and the mould without success so far.

The exact location is being kept secret for reasons of maintaining neighborhood sanity. However, if you’re planning on a soggy vacation, back during Colin Baker’s run in the 1980s the BBC did a lot of exterior filming of Doctor Who in the Hampshire area.

There appears to be no truth to the rumor that a Cyberman has been spotted parking cars in Liverpool.

Let’s say comics fandom congealed in the early 60s, or nearly 30 years after the first comic book was published. That means organized comics fandom has been around more than half again that span. We have our own history, and much of it has been chronicled ­­– brilliantly ­­– by Bill Schelly.

Now Bill has shifted his sights to a man whose own career has mirrored the growth of the medium: Joe Kubert. One of the first generation of comics artists by virtue of his seeking, and getting, employment when he was 11, he got into comics about the same time that Superman did. Joe has continued to write, draw and edit comics to this day. Best known for his work on [[[Hawkman]]], [[[Sgt. Rock]]], [[[Tarzan]]] and his own creation, [[[Tor]]], Joe has also been a pioneer in the direct sales comics movement (Sojourn) and in the modern graphic novel movement.

Kubert is at least as well-known for his work as America’s primary educator of cartoonists: his Kubert School in New Jersey has given us dozens of first-rate talent – from Timothy Truman to Tom Mandrake, from Alex Maleev to Shane Davis, plus a couple of kids named Kubert.

Swell. Everybody’s got a favorite artist, and Kubert’s mine. I’ve waxed poetic about the man before. So, for Schelly to entertain and educate me, well, that’s quite a task.

One Bill met well in his biography Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert , published by Fantagraphics Books. He did a first-rate job, giving us Kubert’s comprehensive story and interviewing Joe and a great many others. He gives us the story of [[[Tor]]] publisher Archer St. John and his “involvement” with (read: target of) the Capone mob, his days at Harvey, EC, and DC… the whole kit and caboodle.

We’ve recently been offered excellent biographies of comics masters Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Joe Kubert has deserved similar treatment, and he’s received just that in Bill Schelly’s hands. I heartedly recommend it to all fans of the medium, its history, and its masters. It’s available through your friendly neighborhood comics shop, through Fantagraphics, and through Bill’s own Hamster Press.

So Brother Glenn e-mails me with “…we do real well with those ‘stories you should read before you see the movie,’ and if anyone else but you did The Spirit list, you’d probably be insulted.” Maybe.

I’m a bit ambivalent towards this movie. I haven’t seen it, but like most of you reading this, I’ve seen the trailers. I’ve loved The Spirit ever since Jules Feiffer turned me onto the character, back in a 1965 article in Playboy magazine. My appetite completely whetted, the good folks at Harvey Comics stoked me up a year later with two “giant-sized” reprints that still remain the best of the many compilations of the character.

So now Frank Miller, a cartoonist known to be quite the Spirit fan (he even worked a reference to creator Will Eisner into RoboCop II), has directed the big Spirit movie that’s coming out any day now. It was co-produced by another comics fan-turned-writer-turned-movie powerhouse, Michael Uslan, of Batman and Swamp Thing movies fame. And those trailers – well, damn, they don’t look like Will Eisner’s creation at all. They look like Sin City with one extra color added. I try not to judge movies by their promotion (outside of triage), but this stuff’s been a bitter disappointment.

So, perhaps, this list should be perceived as “stories you should re-read after you see the movie so you remember why you went in the first place.” I hope not; I’ll be there to see the movie with the greatest hope.

Either way, coming and/or going, here’s ten of the original, truly worthwhile Spirit stories, as written and drawn by Will Eisner with the assistance of such folks as Jules Feiffer, Jerry Grandinetti, and Wally Wood. Ask me again tomorrow, and I’ll bet I give you at least five different stories.

Yep, The Spirit was that good.

These stories have been scattered among numerous reprint collections. The really cool part is, you can’t go wrong with any of them. However, for those of you who remain both employed and financially flush, I’m including The Spirit Archives volume numbers. If you want to pick up just one volume, I recommend volume 19.

1. Ten Minutes (September 11, 1949; volume 19)

2. The Story of Gerhard Shnobble (October 16, 1949; volume 19)

3. Plaster of Paris (November 7, 1948; volume 17)

4 & 5. Sand Saref and Bring In Sand Saref (January 8 and 14, 1950; volume 20)

6 & 7. The Name Is Powder and The Fallen Sparrow (January 4 and 11, 1948; volume 16)

8. Fairy Tales For Juvenile Delinquents: Cinderella (October 5, 1947; volume 15)

9. A DP On The Moon (August 10, 1952; volume 24)

10. The Story Of Rat-Tat, The Toy Machine Gun (September 4, 1949; volume 19)