Category: Columns

Mike Gold: Sweet Home Comicon

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Last week, I reported in this space I was about to leave for Wizard World – Chicago, well-known to readers as my home town and the first love of my life. I got back late yesterday, when I wrote (or will write, depending upon your concept of consensual reality) these fabled words, a heartbeat before deadline.

We ComicMixers (Glenn, Brandy, Marc and me) had a swell time, some of it actually at the convention. We met all kinds of people who were interested in ComicMix Pro Services, which gives me hope, and I got a chance to catch up with a whole lot of friends. Unbelievably awesome meals with; Wednesday, Alex Ross, Hilary Barta, Monte Beauchamp and Jim Wiznewski; Thursday, Dean Haspiel, Danny Fingeroth, J.J. Sedelmaier and Rivet Radio’s Charlie Meyerson; Friday, Ty Templeton and KT Smith; Saturday, if I told you I’d have to kill you; Sunday, The Unshavens. Nothing makes me happier with my clothes on than fine conversation, and I was truly lucky to break bread with all these folks. Including the people I can’t tell you about. Yet.

I was on two panels – a ComicMix Pro Services Tells You How To Get Press For Your Comic Book panel where we got to meet even more talented indy writers and artists, and the Chicago Comics History Panel with Danny and J.J., Larry Charet, Ron Massingill, and the completely wonderful Maggie Thompson. It dawned on me that I’ve been going to conventions since 1968 and Maggie has been going to them… well, longer, but this is the first time we were on a panel together. That simply defies the odds. I’d crawl over a mile of broken glass to do a panel with Maggie.

That latter panel provided the opportunity to do a nice and extremely well-deserved tribute to my former partner, First Comics Co-Creator Rick Obadiah. That was very cathartic, and Rick would have enjoyed it. He wouldn’t have believed it, but he would have enjoyed it nonetheless.

I haven’t done too many shows this year, far fewer than usual. That was fine, but it was great to see fans and old friends and about twelve thousand cosplayers dressed as Deadpool. Next show: the Baltimore Comic-Con, in Baltimore (hey, Wizard World – Chicago was in Rosemont) September 25 through 27. I love that show.

One more thing. Shortly before Wizard World closed on Sunday, I was handed the opportunity to take the above picture with Boba Hawk. As a lifetime Chicago Blackhawks fan, that was… well, you can see for yourself in the photo. No, Svengoolie wasn’t there, but I wore his t-shirt anyway. It glows in the dark, and at a comics convention, one can never tell.

Emily S. Whitten: Entertainment Earth GOTG Action Figure Review

553e4fa12bfb3-550x310-6505773Yesterday in the mail I was excited to receive Entertainment Earth’s exclusive Guardians of the Galaxy action figure set by Hasbro. As you may have noted from previous columns, I’m a big fan of the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and have always liked what I’ve seen of the team in the comics as well, so I was super-excited to get such a cool item!

There are some times when a picture is worth a thousand words, so most of my review is best seen in my video unboxing of the set and <a href=”

 on my Instagram where I’ve got individual photos of Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot. But here I will say that I was very impressed with the detail, articulation, and accessories (particularly baby Groot and the Tesseract/Cosmic Cube!) of this set. I really love both the design and detail.

This is definitely a quality set of figures with fun accessories and cool comic-book-accurate designs for any fan of Guardians of the Galaxy. I recommend you check out my video for my full review, and then pick up a set for yourself!

And until next time, Servo Lectio!

Mindy Newell: Old Dog, New Tricks

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My family went to the Turtleback Zoo yesterday – great zoo, by the way, may I suggest a visit if you live anywhere near West Orange, New Jersey – and driving home I thought about the Legion of Super-Pets. A very strange connection to make, but that’s the mysterious way in which my mind works.

You young ‘uns out there (very much) probably don’t know what I’m talking about, but once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, in a time that would come to be called the Silver Age, incredible tales of fantastical dreams and magical possibilities were told – of lost planets, of cities and their populations living inside bottles, of an alien and his doomed love for a mermaid, of traveling through time in a bubble, and of astonishing heroes gifted with the powers of the gods. And among these tales there was the story of these heroes’ pets, a band of animals also gifted with the powers of the gods, who one day saved the planet Earth from the evil Brain-Globes of Rambat.

Okay, I know, a little too much purple prose there for these cynical times.

Created by Jerry Siegel and Curt Swan and first appearing in Adventure Comics #293 (February 1962) – and no, that’s not a Twitter hash tag, kids – the Legion of Super-Pets consisted of Superboy’s dog, Krypto; Supergirl’s cat, Streaky, and her horse, Comet; and Beppo, a Kryptonian chimpanzee who had been the “test pilot” for one of Jor-el’s early trial flights of a rocket before the destruction of Krypton.

The concept of a Legion of Super-Pets could never sell today, unless the innocence of that Silver Age was twisted into something brittle and corrupted, sarcastic and mocking, distrustful and dirty. Krypto gets rabies, kills Superboy, and goes on a mad rampage, finally dying in a horrific epileptic fit caused by the disease. Comet, a pedophiliac centaur turned into a horse by the Goddess Diana when he raped one of her Vestal Virgins, is now ridden by Supergirl instead of him, uh, “riding” her. Streaky is a malevolent cat vomiting up radioactive hairballs all over the Earth. And Beppo hunts down and kills the poachers who killed Dian Fossey.

I actually approve of that last part. Go, Beppo!

It’s actually not a bad idea. Maybe I’ll work on it.

Superboy: “Heel, Krypto.”

*grrr*

Superboy: “I said Heel!”

*snarl*

Superboy: “What the fu–!!!”

Sometimes it’s a little scary, the things my mind comes up with.

Tweeks: Kids Don’t Need to Be Sheltered From Persepolis #ChallengedChallenge Week 7

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is our penultimate book in the ComicMix Challenged Challenge — and probably our favorite book of the bunch. This is a first hand account of Marjane’s childhood in pre- and post-revolutionary Iran. This graphic novel not only takes the roots of very serious current events issue and breaks it down so kids like us can understand it, but it is a total page-turner. Sure, it’s violent — but we are talking about war, and as far as wars go, this isn’t really very violent at all. This is a lot less violent than what we would see on the news.

Ironically, this book was most recently challenged by a community college student and her parents (Helicopter your adult kid much, Mom & Dad? Geez!) for it’s violence because she was expecting Batman and Robin in her graphic novel lit class. This brings up the subject of why it’s okay for fictional superhero comics to be violent, but not those about real life? We are so confused.

This book was also called out for language. But what gets us mad is that most of the bad language comes from what people said in catcalling (well, more like verbally abusing) Marjane’s mom for not wearing her veil and later for conservative women name-calling Marjane and others. This is how it went down with those words. The words are what makes it cruel and scary. These are not words the average middle schooler has never heard before and unfortunately lots of women here are called these bad names too. Can we talk about those actions first, then worry about the language? If it is so upsetting, then fix the problem, don’t ban the description of it.

There is so much to say, which we do in the video. If you haven’t read Persepolis, please do.

Next week, we discuss our final book, Maus.

Ed Catto: Man from Marz, Still Kicking at 103

jcwomvol1-covtemp4solicit-2217496This month’s Fast Company has a great article on Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, detailing the hard work and innovative rule breaking he and his team put into managing that brand. Their backstory is as impressive as their success. And that property is just a little over ten years old. It made me wonder … just what are the struggles of substantially older properties?

So this week we shine the spotlight on long-time comics writer (and all around good guy) Ron Marz. One of the projects he’s working on now is writing the adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars in the ongoing Dynamite comic series. Here’s what Ron had to say:

Ed Catto: The characters and mythology of John Carter of Mars have been around for over 100 years. What kind of challenges and opportunities does that present to you?

Ron Marz: I think it’s seen by some people as an “old” property, but that’s almost entirely because of when it was written. That’s like saying “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” and “The Three Musketeers” are old properties. They’re all classic, archetypal properties that are evergreen, and I honestly believe John Carter is no different. It’s the basis of so much of our science fiction and fantasy tradition, even if people don’t realize it. I’ve said before that writing these characters was a lifelong dream, so I couldn’t be happier than to be mining this material.

EC: The whole world knows about Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “other” creation, Tarzan.  But John Carter has never enjoyed that level of recognition. Why is that?

jcwom12-cov-c-lupacchino-3525067RM: Tarzan crossed over into the movies not long after his creation, and has stayed a movie staple ever since. There’s a new big-budget Tarzan film coming next year. Everybody has seen Tarzan movies, because that concept was a lot easier to translate to film than John Carter was. Any character becomes much more a part of the popular consciousness when it crosses over into mass media. I think Tarzan, along with Sherlock Holmes and Batman and Superman, are the most recognizable fictional characters in the world.

EC: I always thought the secret of John Carter was that these stories allow the reader to imagine himself as the new kid at a new school, but as the best athlete and with the prettiest girl. What do you think makes John Carter and Barsoom so enduring?

RM: Sure, there’s a big aspect of wish fulfillment to these stories, which is why so many people discover them at that magic age of 12 or 13 years old. But I do think there’s also an amazingly rich imagination to the stories. They’re a century old, but they’re not quaint or time capsules of a bygone era. They’re still vital because there’s so fantastical, in the true sense of the word, which is why you can see John Carter’s fingerprints on everything from Superman to Star Wars to Avatar.

EC: In your first story arc, you cleverly created a bad guy who was sort of the anti-John Carter. Can you tell us about that, and does this property suffer from not having stronger antagonists?

RM: That’s why I created John’s opposite number for the first arc. Even when reading the original novels, I felt like John didn’t often get a credible challenge. He didn’t have his Doctor Doom or his Joker. So in addition to introducing the characters and concepts, that was a main goal for the initial arc. I felt like we needed someone who was John’s equal on Mars, so the obvious answer for that was another Earthman. I’m really happy with the Captain Joshua Clark character. Who knows, maybe we haven’t seen the last of him.

EC: Dejah Thoris is a wonderful character but always seemed like the adolescent idea of a beauty – to be placed upon a pedestal. The way you present the relationship between Dejah and John Carter, especially in issues 7 – 9, comes across as a much more mature relationship. Is that your intent and does that come from being a middle-aged guy?

jcwom01-cov-e-lupacchino-7030163RM: I think it comes from knowing strong women all my life, and wanting to portray that realistically, despite the fantastic setting. Dejah is still an ideal, she’s still the one everyone wants to marry, but hopefully she comes off as a little bit more of a real woman. She’s every bit the hero and warrior that John is.

EC: I really like the variant covers that are evocative of the old Marvel Comics. Can you tell us how that came about?

RM: Honestly, I have no idea. It was something that Dynamite put into place from the first issue. I’m a fan of the Marvel run, I have all of the original issues, and I actually have two copies of the omnibus hardcover collecting everything. Maybe those aren’t the best comics ever published, but they hold a place in my heart. I can remember picking one of the annuals off a spinner rack as a kid. So I’m glad the covers pay homage to that era.

EC: Are there any plans to continue this with covers that pay homage to the old DC, Dell/Four Color etc. covers?

RM: Not that I know of, but I like the idea. There’s such a rich history of Edgar Rice Burroughs in comics, reflecting that seems like a natural direction to pursue.

EC: I know you are working on some other Edgar Rice Burroughs properties. Can you tell us about them, how fans can get them and what your plans are?

RM: I’m doing weekly strips for the official Edgar Rice Burroughs site. I’m adapting The Mucker novels with Lee Moder on art, and writing new stories of Tarzan’s son, Korak, with Rick Leonardi on art. Both strips are being colored by Neeraj Menon. They’re Sunday-style strips, updated weekly on the site, along with almost 20 other strips based on Burroughs material, everything from Tarzan to John Carter. The first four episodes of each strip can be viewed for free, and then a monthly subscription is only $1.99, so it’s a pretty amazing bargain. People can get the strips by going to http://www.edgarriceburroughs.com/comics/

EC: Great stuff, Ron. Thanks for your time!

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John Ostrander: The Power of Pop

uncle-toms-cabin-5961068I had reason a week ago to watch Ken Burns’ classic documentary The Civil War – part of the research for Kros: Hallowed Ground, now fully funded at Kickstarter, thank you very much.

Briefly, the series mentioned Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the famed novel written by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1852. It was the most popular novel of its day and is credited as a cause of the Civil War. Lincoln supposedly told Ms. Stowe on meeting her after the war started, “’So this is the little lady who started this great war.’” The story is apocryphal, according to most historians.

Pop culture has the ability to change the society of which it is a part. Mind you, that’s not always its intent or even aim. Sometimes a comic book is just a comic book. And maybe it doesn’t change things as overtly and dramatically as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I do think, however, that pop culture has considerable power.

Pop TV, by featuring black characters and, later, gay and lesbian characters, helped normalize the unknown to the wider audience. People who didn’t know (or realized they knew) or were friends with anyone who was black or gay or lesbian now welcomed them into their living room. Part of the sense of betrayal that people feel with Bill Cosby is that they thought themselves friends with Cliff Huxtable. It was as if they suddenly didn’t know him.

Roots also had a profound effect on the American audience at large. White people found themselves identifying with generations of African-Americans. The show was a phenomenon.

Hillary Clinton, in a semi-private discussion with members of BlackLivesMatter, recently said, “I don’t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate. You’re not going to change every heart. You’re not. But at the end of the day, we can do a whole lot to change some hearts, and change some systems, and create more opportunities for people who deserve to have them.”

In many ways, I admire what she said. I thought it was far more direct, far more candid, than what you ordinarily hear from presidential candidates.

However, I disagree with it.

I think you do change hearts with the arts and especially pop culture. A show, a song, a movie, a play may reach people and open up their minds a bit because it first opens the heart in ways that arguments, sermons, speeches and so on cannot. In those cases, we’re a bit more guarded. We anticipate our thoughts, our beliefs, our biases being challenged and we may have our defenses up. These days, I post far less political stuff on my Facebook page, not because I believe in certain things any less but because I don’t see any of the discussions/arguments changing anyone’s mind – not mine and not with the person with whom I am having that discussion/argument. That becomes, to me, a waste of time.

I think the way to change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate is by opening the mind and that is done by first opening the heart, by creating a groundswell of demand within the population for that change. Pop culture can do that by skirting the defenses; after all, it wants to entertain us. It must do that first in order to have a right to speak its mind. Our defenses may be lowered and we may be more receptive.

I’m not saying that Pop Culture is the most important agent of change. It’s not Rosa Parks, it’s not the March on Selma, it’s not the Stonewall Riots, it’s not Harvey Milk, or any of a thousand other events that changed our world. However, it is a part of that change or, at least, can be. Sometimes. It reflects where we are, it shows where we can go. To make a change you first have to imagine and visualize that change.

As I said, Pop Culture doesn’t always do that and often, it’s not trying to do that. Sometimes, however, it can. Mrs. Clinton’s view is very pragmatic but, if she wants to win, if she wants to govern, she needs to engage our hearts as well as our minds. She needs to take a few lessons from Pop Culture.

 

Marc Alan Fishman: Fatherhood 2.0

Marc Fishman ArtIn light of all the morbid news flying around these days, sometimes you have to take a deep breath and remember where your joy is. Mine is up two short flights of stairs, attempting to figure out a way to extend his bedtime. He asks for juice. No. Water? No. Storytime? No. Play game? Go to sleep. And after his cat-timer has counted down from ten minutes to a sharp ding, my son retires to his toddler bed for the evening. As the Barenaked Ladies might ask

When you dream
What do you dream about?
Are they color or black and white, Yiddish or English
Or languages not yet conceived?
Are they silent or boisterous?
Do you hear noises just loud enough to be perceived?

These questions nip at me now because my wife and I are expecting our second child. We announced with my typical over-the-top bluster – see the art this week – not long ago via social media.

The decision to become a Fantastic Foursome instead of remaining a terrific trio was made without much trepidation or actual conversation. Put simply, even amidst all the calamity that exists with a three-and-a-half-year-old sharknado, there was an empty space in our hearts where another wee-one would fit. It stands to be said that both my wife and I are only children; both of us lamented for many years that we’d always pondered a life lived in a family unit versus being the lone soul of attention. And while my boy is the apple of my eye and the spoils of all my time and affection, it’s disgustingly true that I somehow have even more love to give. Pardon the unicorn vomiting rainbows in the corner.

But, truly, what a time to raise a family! I speak not of the modern luxuries of technology, or the immense libraries of literature allowing for picture-perfect childrearing mind you. I speak selfishly of the golden age of nerds into which I now bring my doomspawn. The other afternoon, I took my son and wife to Toys R’ Us. Why? So dad could buy a new Nerf gun, of course. And my son walked up and down the aisle, pointing out every single character he knew, proved to me he is living in a wonderland I could only have dreamt of when I was his age. Come to think of it, at his age I’d have no idea that Marvel and DC would own whole aisles of the toy store. And while most of the toys are movie or TV related, at their core there are pulpy roots.

My son, and future child are being raised in a world where nearly every movie or TV show of any value to them now streams into my home on demand. The video game systems in my home – both of which now old by current standards – have a library deeper than the entirety of the Nintendo catalog over the entirety of my childhood. There are a dozen comic book shops within 25 miles of my home, and a comic convention nearly every month. And that doesn’t take into consideration the online offerings of pulp fiction. Simply put, my children will have access to more content than I can honestly comprehend.

As they mature and begin to find their own paths, they will curate the trove of material to find themselves. My youth was spent finding a single outlet at a time, drilling it dry, and moving on to the next. Cape and cowl books begat the grim and gritty worlds of Image and Vertigo. Pop was pushed aside for punk, then ska, then metal, then receded back to alternative pop. In every case, I’d honestly reached a saturation point (where the available content to me in suburban Chicagoland was limited to the chain stores or knowing someone’s older brother willing to drive you to the cool part of town to find new material), then had to make the conscious choice to either seek the roots of the material I loved, or find something new instead. Now, should my children find an admiration for Batman, well, they could spend years soaking in every panel on a page, or every frame of film involving the Dark Knight, with a flick of the finger. Whereas their old man was once limited to the single shelf of full price graphic novels or pricier archived reprints and the picked-over remnants at the local Blockbuster. And that was well before the time where reviews readily existed to warn said old man of a not-great read. But I, as usual, digress.

At the beginning of this article, I’d mentioned the notion of finding my joy. Amidst all the stresses that adulting brings me – bills, not-yet-fully-funded-Kickstarters, a full time day job, a full time night job, and the whole “being a dad and a husband and a son and a friend” thing – having the ability to melt all of that away is key to my sanity. And when I see my son’s face light up over the silliest of things (a new Batman toy in a Happy Meal, or daddy getting first place in Mario Kart 64), the weight of the world is lifted off my sore shoulders. His joy is my joy. The nerdy world around him beckons every waking hour, with some comic-connected bit of entertainment ready to set his imagination on fire. And right behind him as he exclaims “Cyborg and Beast Boy fight Raven’s dad!” is me, with a smile from ear to ear.

How could I not want to bring another bundle of joy into a world like that?

 

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #368

DISMISSING A CASE WITH PREJUDICE IS INJUDICIOUS

First of all, when a lawyer gets a case dismissed with prejudice, that doesn’t mean it’s because the lawyer was the new, reconfigured Atticus Finch.

So what does “dismissed with prejudice” mean then? That’s the question I promised to answer last week, while discussing Daredevil v.4 #15.1, because a judge dismissed a criminal case against Matt Murdock’s client with prejudice. And here I am this week doing what I promised to do last week by answering the question.

Not all lawsuits end in a jury verdict. In fact, to tell the truth, most of them don’t. (Jeez, doing what I promised to do and telling the truth; that’s enough to get me kicked out of my lawyer in good standing status. If I were still a lawyer or ever had a good standing.) Most cases end long before a trial or a jury verdict. Many end with some sort of compromise deal being reached between the two parties. Either a settlement in a civil case or a plea bargain in a criminal case. Others end with one of the sides filing a motion to dismiss the case and the judge granting that motion. Still others end in other ways, but as we’re talking about motions to dismiss today, we won’t bother with those still other ways.

Either side can file a motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs or defendants in civil cases or the prosecutors or defendants in criminal cases. (Please note, in a lawsuit – both civil and criminal lawsuits – the party bringing the suit is the plaintiff. Plaintiffs in criminal cases are usually called prosecutors or the state, but they’re still the plaintiffs. For the sake of convenience, I’m going to use the term “plaintiff” to refer to both civil plaintiffs and prosecutors.) Usually one side files the motion to dismiss because there is a weakness in the plaintiff’s case. Plaintiffs, for example, might file a motion to buy some more time to develop their case. Defendants can file to dismiss, if they feel that the charging papers – either a civil complaint or a criminal indictment – fail to set forth an adequate case to present to a jury.

When a judge is presented with a motion to dismiss, the judge can either grant the motion or deny it. Most judges grant the motion to dismiss, if for no other reason than that it gets the case of the judge’s docket. Do judges like to get cases off their dockets? Does Sonny the Cuckoo Bird like Coco Puffs? If a judge grants the motion to dismiss, the judge can grant it in one of two ways. The judge can grant the motion with pride – judges do almost everything with pride – but either with or without prejudice.

Ah five paragraphs into the column and finally we’re reaching the Clara Peller part. where the beef is.

If a judge grants a motion to dismiss without prejudice , that means that the plaintiff can file the case again in the future. If, however, the judge grants the motion to dismiss with prejudice, that means the plaintiff cannot file the case again. The plaintiff can appeal the judge’s dismissal with prejudice. But absent an appeals court overturning the dismissal with prejudice, the plaintiff is barred from ever filing that case in the future.

Common reasons for dismissing a case with prejudice include fraud on the part of the plaintiffs or the case being barred by the statute of limitations or the case being barred by res judicata because the plaintiffs brought the same matter to trial in an earlier case and lost. There are, of course more reasons. Lots more. (Seriously, you think there’s actually a legal principle that’s so simple it could be answered completely with only three examples? The law is large, it contains multitudes. And that’s just the tax code.)

In the Daredevil story, a murder charge against one Luiz Sifuentes was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the state of New York could not refile the same charges against Mr. Sifuentes in the future. Usually in criminal cases a case is dismissed with prejudice for one of a few reasons. If the defendant was already tried for the same charges and found not guilty, the defendant can’t be tried on those charges a second time because of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. So if the state were to bring the same charges a second time and the trial court dismissed the case because of double jeopardy, that would be a dismissal with prejudice.

Another dismissal with prejudice would be if the state brought charges after the statute of limitations expired. In that case, the state would be barred from ever filing charges again, because of the statute of limitations.

Of if the defendant’s case were dismissed because the state didn’t bring the defendant to trial in compliance with the Speedy Trial clause of the Sixth Amendment that would also be a dismissal with prejudice, because the speedy trial violation would prevent the state from pursuing the charges in the future.

Those are some of the major reasons that a criminal case can be dismissed with prejudice. There are, naturally others. Multitudes, remember?

In the Sifuentes case, Sifuentes was charged with shooting a man to death in Central Park. Daredevil investigated the case and caught the two other people who were actually guilty of the crime. These two confessed to the murder after their fingerprints were found on the bullets in the cylinder of the murder weapon. They also admitted they didn’t know Luiz Sifuentes. So the judge dismissed the case against Sifuentes with prejudice, meaning that the state could never bring these charges against Mr. Sifuentes again.

That’s unlikely. The trial court wouldn’t want to do something which precluded the state from ever filing the charges again. What, for example, would happen if the other two defendants recanted their stories and said Sifuentes was also in on the murder? Or what if the state learned that the other two defendants were friends with Sifuentes and lied about not knowing him to get their friend out of trouble? In either scenario, the state would want to bring murder charges against Sifuentes again, but wouldn’t be able to do so, because the case had been dismissed with prejudice. So it’s not likely that the trial court would have granted Sifuentes’s motion to dismiss with prejudice, as it wouldn’t want to preclude the state from pursuing a case against Sifuentes, should new facts establishing Sifuentes’s actual guilt ever come to light.

What would probably have happened in the Sifuentes case is that the judge would have granted the motion to dismiss, based on the fact that Mr. Sifuentes appeared to be innocent of the charges. But it would have dismissed the case without prejudice. The state of New York would then have to decide whether it wanted to pursue a case against Sifuentes. If it believed that he was actually innocent of the crime, then it wouldn’t file the charges again and the matter would be over. But if, after further investigation, the State felt that Sifuentes was actually involved in the killing, it would file the charges against him a second time.

The trial court wouldn’t want to prejudge the state’s future ability to prosecute Mr. Sifuentes, so it wouldn’t grant a dismissal with prejudice. Oh and one more thing, don’t confuse prejudging with deciding which hybrid car to buy. Prius judging is entirely different.

Marta Thomases: What Being An Ally Looks Like

eltingvilleclub-2-e1440174264101-6824522This is what being an ally looks like.  And it’s funny, too!

There are far too few comics that make me giggle like the little girl I am inside this old body.

Ambush Bug.  Anything by Kyle Baker.  Alan Moore’s D. R. and Quinch.

And just about anything written and drawn by Evan Dorkin.

I met Evan at a comics convention, probably about 25 years ago, and I know him just well enough to stop by and chat for five minutes when I see him, which is almost always at a comics convention.  Five minutes is enough for me to establish that we know each other, that I’m not a stalker, and that his work makes me happy.

The first of his work that I liked was, I think, Milk & Cheese.  From there, I followed all sorts of weird little strips he did — strips that were literally little, in that there would be about eight on a page, with teeny-tiny lettering fit only for someone as young as I was at the time.

Also, Eltingville,  series of stories about the Eltingville Comic Book, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror & Role-Playing Club, four Staten Island teenaged fan-boys who make me cringe as much as laugh.  There is enough useless pop culture trivia occupying braincells that I could be using to learn a foreign language, but no, I have to know that Matter-Eating Lad’s real name is Tenzil Kem and he comes from the Planet Bismoll.

(I should also explain that I was way too old when I realized what a pun that last bit is.  Because I’m too geeky to think that way normally.)

The very last Eltingville story is out now at your friendly neighborhood comic book shop or Internet site.  I’m pleased to report that it’s brilliant.

And cringe-inducing.

The four former friends meet at San Diego Comic-Con.  One has a girlfriend.  This drives one to scream:

“See, this is why girls weren’t allowed in the club … Listen up, bitch.  Because I’m onto you. I watched you sittin’ there, laughin’ at us, mockin’ us, shovin’ your tits in our faces to work us all up!  You can’t stand seein’ us get along so you gotta stick your twat where it doesn’t belong to try to cunt everything up!!  Well, it won’t work!  You may have ruined fandom — you and all the other cultural immigrants who invaded our territory — but you won’t ruin us.!”

I can’t remember ever seeing such a painful expression of misogyny, revealed as the cowardly, selfish, expression of every man’s inner three-year-old.  (And, yes, women have a version of that about men, sometimes. It’s just that since women don’t run the world — despite what men who don’t have regular sex partners might think — our expressions of these feelings are less likely to have a similarly intimidating effects.)

These four guys are not powerful.  They lead lives on the dull, frustrated side of normal.  They are at an age when they start to realize that they aren’t going to achieve the ambitions they had as kids, and they are looking for someone to blame.

Maybe you think I’m reaching too far, ascribing a political motive to Evan’s story.  According to this, I’m not.  In the interview, Evan says, “Every day, there’s somebody doing something awful in fandom. And a lot of the times, it’s somebody from one of the companies or it’s a creator saying some dumb shit about women or transgender people. This is the audience, and the bizarre opinions that some people have… This attitude that comics or movies or gaming is just for them-it’s so myopic. It’s tunnel vision. The idea that you can’t even put yourself in another person’s place and understand the rampant misogyny of the world. Not just this. And how angry and hateful so many people are. People getting doxxed, people getting death threats.”

This is what an ally sounds like.  He’s not telling women and people of color and transgender people how to run their movement.  He’s telling men not to be awful.

More, please.

Tweeks: D23 2015 Part 1

It’s no secret that we are huge Disney fans.  It was, after all our first fandom.  We love the movies, the TV shows, the Parks, the Broadway musicals – omg, just everything.  And then you go throwing Star Wars and Marvel into the mix.  (Plus, the Anaheim Convention Center has really amazing food choices, so we might just go to any con they decide to throw there.)

Last weekend, the super Disney fandom organization, D-23, held it’s 4th Expo (if someone is keeping score – this our third one we’ve attended) and lots of great announcements were made and tons of stars were there, and unlike Comic Cons, we could easily point out the origins of even the most obscure cosplay. There were also exhibits, concerts, signings, and panels.

There was so much going on that we had to break our coverage into two videos..  This one talks about some of the major announcements like Johnny Depp being inducted into the Hall of Fame, the new Star Wars lands in both Disney World and Disneyland,  a preview of Disney Shanghai, and Disney Animation & Pixar’s newest movies.

Until next time….May the force of Tinkerbell’s pixie dust come with great responsibility.

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