Author: Rick Marshall

Gene Colan’s Health Issues Prompt Industry Fundraising Efforts

colan_batman_cover-3861728While Warner Bros./DC is actively shutting down fundraisers, the friends and family of artist Gene Colan are continuing to put the word out about their need for donations to help with the cost of Colan’s medical bills due to dangerous liver problems.

Dirk Deppey over at Journalista has made it the top story for the entire week and like many other sites, provided a link to auctions of Colan’s original art that his family has posted. He’s also offered up an alternate strategy for getting much-needed money into the right hands:

Do as I did, and make a direct donation via Paypal, where the Colans are registered as genecolan@optonline.net — just log into your account, hit the “send money” button, and insert said email address and the amount you wish to donate into the appropriate boxes. Oh, and you might want to mention the word “donation” prominently in the comments box, so the Colans don’t have to sort through a bunch of listings to find the eBay payments.

Tom Spurgeon also offered up a host of links and information about Colan, his predicament and how you can help, while ComicMix pal Mark Evanier posted a long message about Colan on his website:

I don’t know what else to write here. It just seems appropriate to send a whole lotta love the Colans’ way this morning. I hope the dire reports on his health will prove to be overstated. I hope we’ll have Gene around for many more years. I hope — and of this, I am the surest — that Gene is well aware how many fans he has and how, whenever he goes, he’s leaving behind an incredible body of work that will be praised and studied and appreciated by comic book fans who aren’t even born yet. I just think we oughta postpone losing a guy like that as long as possible.

A message from Colan’s wife Adrienne can also be read here. (more…)

DC/Warner Bros. Shut Down Childhood Cancer Fundraiser

superdrunk-9327448BoingBoing recently put the spotlight on Warner Bros. decision to shut down a series of original art auctions on eBay benefitting a childhood cancer charity. Apparently, many of the pieces of art in the auction (which the organizer had requested of his contacts in the comics community and they were more than happy to provide) depicted DC characters such as Batman and Superman.

From organizer Thomas Denton’s blog, Say It Backwards:

I just got notice that two of the Superman related auctions have been removed from the site and the rest are probably next. I don’t know what to do now. I have to start canceling auctions and issuing refunds. That means all the fees and such I’m now responsible for which is money i just don’t have, and I have no idea if I’m still obligated to the middleman ebay uses for their charity auctions.

…

I am heartbroken. I am really sorry to any one this is any trouble for. Legally, I was in the wrong. I used their intellectual property without their permission. I’m not going to play the victim on that front. I swear I just wanted to do something good.

Denton offered some further thoughts on the whole kerfuffle in a later post, as well as notice that he would probably be shutting down his site — which had been a vocal supporter of all things Superman and DC over the years — once the dust had settled.

(more…)

Superheroes, the Richard Mullins Way

Our pals over at Fanboy.com recently posted some really great work from artist Richard Mullins featuring Batman, Robin and a few other familiar characters. I’d love to have any one of these pieces hanging in my office, to be honest.

Since I’m probably the last person you want to consult when it comes to describing art (I’m more of a "I know it when I see it" sort of guy), I’ll let Fanboy.com’s Michael Pinto handle the synopsis:

What I like about his work is that in addition to be inspired by pop art subjects, his style of painting and bold use of vivid colors reminds me a great deal of the Fauvism of Henri Matisse.

Yeah, I agree. I think he summed it up there.

(Psst Between you and I, I had no idea what "fauvism" was before I read this.)

Darth Vader Gets Drunk, Attacks Jedi Church

darthvader-9314371To be filed under "Sometimes This Stuff Really Writes Itself," Newsweek.com is reporting that a 27-year-old man who dressed up as Star Wars villain Darth Vader (complete with garbage-bag cape)  and attacked members of a British group calling itself the Jedi Church, has been officially spared any time in jail.

According to reports, Arwel Wynne Hughes attacked church founders Barney Jones (a.k.a. "Master Jonba Hehol") and Michael Jones (a.k.a. "Master Mormi Hehol") with a metal crutch two months ago. The cousins created the "Jedi Church" after a 2001 U.K. census reported 390,000 people (0.7 percent of the country’s population) who claimed "Jedi" as their religion.

Here’s the best part, though:

Hughes claimed he couldn’t remember the incident, having drunk the better part of a 2 1/2-gallon (10-liter) box of wine beforehand.

Seriously, there’s nothing worse than a drunk guy who can control The Force. If I had a nickel for every party that ended when someone force-pushed another guest through a wall…

Can You Build Your Own ‘Iron Man’ Suit?

So what would it take to build your own Iron Man suit? Given enough money and access to scientific equipment, could you become a superhero?

The good people over at The Chicago Tribune posed exactly those questions to James Kakalios, a University of Minnesota physics professor. Kakalios weighed in on the likelihood of building various elements of Iron Man’s armor, including jet boots, cybernetic helmet and, of course, repulsor rays:

It’s that power thing again. If you want to send lightning bolts — or laser beams, more likely — shooting out of your palms, you have to carry along a power source big enough to generate them. To make a beam "powerful enough to melt a fist-size hole through a half-inch steel plate," Kakalios says, "would require an energy pulse of over 2 gigawatts of power, greater than the output of a nuclear power plant."

The verdict? Well, let’s just say that you might want to hold off on making any superpowered arch-enemies for a while.

Read the full article over at The Chicago Tribune website.

M.O.D.O.K. and Genocide = M.O.D.O.G.?

Marvel.com, which recently cleaned up in the Eagle Awards as “Favorite Comics Related Website,” has posted some new art today featuring one of my favorite characters in the Marvel Universe: M.O.D.O.K.

Or, more accurately, M.O.D.O.G.

Yes, everyone’s favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing seems to have found himself a new hobby, as well as a new home, in Invincible Iron Man. The new version of the big-headed bugger has taken a shine to genocide instead of just garden-variety killing, according to information released about the villain’s upcoming appearance in the second issue of the Matt Fraction/Salvador Larroca series.

Marvel.com has posted samples of Larroca’s new M.O.D.O.G. art, including this great image of Iron Man dragging the ever-creepy creature around by his hair.

The thing is, I’m not sure if the decision to shift his focus from “Killing” to “Genocide” makes him more or less dangerous. With a M.O.D.O.G., at least you have a good idea of who’s on his hit list, right? But a M.O.D.O.K. – that’s a different story. He wants to kill everybody.

Unless, of course, he’s discovered the sweet serenity of regular meditation.

ComicMix on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook!

Attention ComicMix Readers: Even though we’re still not convinced that these InterWebs are more than just a passing fad, we’ve taken steps to make sure you can find ComicMix all over them… just in case the ‘Net sticks around for a while.

Here are some of the places you can find us:

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Grand Theft Auto IV: Less NYC, More Chicago’s South Side?

The hub-bub over the recent release of Grand Theft Auto IV is finally starting to die down, but of all the stories popping up around the InterWebs about the controversial videogame, one really caught my eye.

Slate recently posted an analysis of the real-world dynamics of life on the wrong side of the law – and those who are forced to live and work with that dynamic every day – as echoed in GTA IV. While the landscape of the videogame is based on the New York City Metro area, the author contends that the true real-world equivalent of life in the GTA IV universe can be found in Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods.

The last time I visited Chicago, I stopped by 59th Street, near Washington Park (and only a few short blocks from the picturesque University of Chicago). Two of the local gangs were fighting each other in full view for control of a prime sales spot, a hotel. For a monthly fee, the proprietor had promised to allow one gang to turn the place into a bordello—drugs, prostitution, stolen merchandise. For the gangs, winning meant more than simply getting rid of their enemy. Neither controlled the area surrounding the hotel. Anyone bringing drugs (or women, or guns, etc.) to the hotel would have to run the gantlet formed by other enemy gangs, who would be at the ready to shoot down the transporter.

Author Sudhir Venkatesh goes on to compare the decisions GTA IV’s protagonist must make over the course of the game, and compares those choices to many of those made by residents of South Side streets where the criminal element provides the only semblance of structure.

Read the full article on Slate.com.

Doctor Who in Review: Season Four, Episode #3 – Ood Get Even

The hit BBC series Doctor Who is now in its fourth season on the Sci-Fi Channel, and since we’re all big fans here at ComicMix, we’ve decided to kick off an episode-by-episode analysis of the reinvigorated science-fiction classic.

Every week, we’ll have our best Who-philes go through the most recent episode with a fine-tooth comb (or whatever the "sonic screwdriver" equivalent might be) and call out all of the continuity checks, names dropped and storyline hints we can find to keep in mind for future episodes. We’ll post our analysis each Monday, so you have ample time to check out the episode once it airs each Friday at 9 PM EST on Sci-Fi Channel before reading our review.

Missed a week? Readers can view past "Doctor Who in Review" features via the links at the end of this article.

Keep in mind, we’re going to assume readers have already watched the episode when we put fingers to keyboard and come up with our roundup of important plot points. In other words, SPOILER ALERT!

Let’s begin now, shall we?

Season Four, Episode #3: "Planet of the Ood" (more…)

Cracked’s Creepiest Comic Book Characters

To be filed under "Hey! that’s OUR thing, man!" Cracked.com recently posted a list of "The 6 Creepiest Comic Book Characters of All Time," leaving me wondering why they chose to make it a list of six characters. Why not five… or ten? "Cracked Six" just doesn’t sound right, while ComicMix Six is practically candy for the ears.

But I digress…

Highlights of the questionably named list include Proty, the "sentient spunk blob" from Legion of Superheroes, and Comet, Supergirl’s bestiality-minded superhorse.

Also, Comet periodically turns into a full human, at which point he does what any horse would do: Try to get laid with Supergirl before she can figure out he is really her horse.

The Cracked crew also gives a nod to Inner Child, one of Grant Morrison’s creations during his Doom Patrol run, which seems like a cop-out, seeing as how 95-percent of the characters created by Morrison are pretty freakin’ creepy.

Check out the full list at Cracked.com.

 

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