Category: News

Fanboy Meltdown: Picard Meets the Doctor

Fanboy Meltdown: Picard Meets the Doctor

  • News
  • August 30, 2007

Patrick Stewart, aka Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek : The Next Generation, is teaming up with David Tennant, aka the 10th Doctor of Doctor Who, in The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet. Tennant has the lead, Stewart does Claudius, and tickets will go faster than a Beatles reunion after Yoko drops dead.

Hamlet runs July 24 through November 15, 2008. Right after that, Tennant plays Berowne in Love’s Labor’s Lost, which, I believe, is a spin-off from last season’s "The Shakespeare Code" episode of Doctor Who, That show runs October 2 through November 15, 2008. So David will be a bit preoccupied next summer and fall.

If you’re planning on seeing either performance, get your passport ready. As one might assume, The Royal Shakespeare Company is in Britain.

 

COMICS LINKS: Felt Typewriters

COMICS LINKS: Felt Typewriters

  • News
  • August 30, 2007

Today, our illustration is of a felt replica of an Underwood typewriter, simply because dogged persistence in the pursuit of idiosyncratic ends should always be celebrated. That is really impressive.

 

Comics Links

Comic Book Resources has a Bizarro talk with Geoff Johns.

CBR also chatted with ComicMix‘s own Mike Baron, whose character The Badger will be returning soon from IDW. ("Lawyers? I hate lawyers!")

Comics Reporter runs down the reactions to the news that Berkley Breathed’s strip Opus has been dropped from a number of papers for two Sundays for religious intolerance and making the wrong kind of jokes.

Newsarama has another article in their ongoing series about stuff they love, “I (heart) comics.” Has anyone told them that the heart icon doesn’t come through in feeds – and not always on their page as well – so it looks like they’re saying “I slash team books?” And do they understand the significance of slash?

Comics Reviews

The Book Nerd reviews Linda Medley’s graphic novel Castle Waiting.

The Tri-City News loves itself some Scott Pilgrim.

Blogcritics reviews The Poison Diaries by Jane, Duchess of Northumberland & Colin Stimpson.

SF/Fantasy Links

Here’s an official report on the Chengdu International SF/Fantasy Conference, and here’s Neil Gaiman’s personal report.

Ellen Kushner has arrived in Japan for Worldcon.

And so has Patrick Nielsen Hayden.

(Further links, I hope, as more people arrive in Japan and start posting.)

SF Diplomat circles back to the subject of Fantasy (which he still hates). You know, I could read one or two romance novels, loathe them, and then create a huge, unwieldy critical apparatus too, but…I have better things to do with my time. (He gets hammered in the comments quite comprehensively on similar grounds.)

John Joseph Adams’s upcoming anthology Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse has a website.

Niall Harrison of Torque Control has some notes from an evening with William Gibson.

(more…)

JOHN OSTRANDER: Fighting Words

JOHN OSTRANDER: Fighting Words

  • News
  • August 30, 2007

Well, crap.

Just when I think there’s nothing more coming from the Mess in Iraq that can appall me, they find a new spoonful of shit to shove down my throat. Here. Go read this link from MSNBC.

Blood boiling yet? Quick summary for those of you who didn’t click the link: those people, the whistleblowers, who have spoken up about the corruption and the fraud, the outright diversion and theft of funds going into Iraq – our tax dollars! – are being vilified, harassed, fired, detained, tortured and, in general, getting their lives ruined. And our government – surprise! – is a big part of it.

There’s a purpose to all this: discourage anyone else who might think about speaking out. What makes the folks perpetrating this travesty think they can get away with it? The fact that they are getting away with it! Small companies to large and by large, I do mean Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR which got the lion’s share of money going to Iraq to “rebuild” it.

You remember Halliburton – the corporation Dick Cheney headed before going into public service as President – whoops, Vice-President. It’s no longer an American company; it’s now a United Arab Emirates company. I thought you weren’t supposed to be working for the government if you’re also going to be a company’s lobbyist but either I’m misinformed or Cheney is uninformed on this point. The amount of no competition contracts Halliburton or its KBR subsidiary received for the rebuilding on Iraq is staggering as was the price gouging and corruption. Here follows the testimony of one whistleblower:

“Julie McBride testified last year that as a ‘morale, welfare and recreation coordinator’ at Camp Fallujah, she saw KBR exaggerate costs by double- and triple-counting the number of soldiers who used recreational facilities.

“She also said the company took supplies destined for a Super Bowl party for U.S. troops and instead used them to stage a celebration for themselves.” — Iraq corruption whistleblowers face penalties,” Associated Press Aug 25, 2007

That last bit was just crooked, petty, and arrogant. Done because they could. Why could they? Because one political party controlled both the White House and both houses of Congress. I don’t care if it’s Republican or Democrat – to me, that’s just looking for trouble. And this Administration has worked hand in glove with certain Big Business to the point we’ve become a government Of the Corporation, By the Corporation, and For the Corporation.

What has happened to Ms. McBride? Let her tell it. “After I voiced my concerns about what I believed to be accounting fraud, Halliburton placed me under guard and kept me in seclusion,” she told the committee. “My property was searched, and I was specifically told that I was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. I remained under guard until I was flown out of the country [Iraq].”

(more…)

Gecko meets Spidey

Gecko meets Spidey

  • News
  • August 29, 2007

So many media cross-refs, so little time.

Both the Beeb and the Daily Mail are reporting on research published in the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter by Professor Nicola Pugno on "how sufficient stickiness could be generated in the same way [as occurs naturally with geckos and spiders] to support an adult human’s body weight."  Pugno’s team says they’ve "come up with a formula for a suit" that "would work by coating the suit’s gloves and boots in microscopic structures called carbon nanotubes," but it’s still on the drawing board.

Some of us are waiting for the inevitable crossover.

Today South Park, tomorrow the world!

Today South Park, tomorrow the world!

  • News
  • August 29, 2007

Via Cynopsis: South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker entered into a heavy-duty contract with Comedy Central to create South Park Digital Studios. The facility, located inside of the show’s Culver City studio, will serve as a home for all digital extensions of the South Park franchise as well as an incubator for new animated projects. Comedy Central gets a first-look option at anything they come up with.

The deal also includes a three-year contract extension that will carry South Park through its 15th season and gives Matt and Trey an unprecedented 50/50 split in ad revenues generated across the web, video games and mobile platforms, in addition to undisclosed millions in upfront cash.

And to think they were going to quit after the 65th episode.

COMICS LINKS: Happy Birthday, Jack Kirby!

COMICS LINKS: Happy Birthday, Jack Kirby!

Comics Links

The New York Times notes what would have been Jack Kirby’s 90th birthday. (And, in honor of that, a random odd Kirby drawing is our illustration today – a stamp with a Kirby Silver Surfer.)

The Beat digs into Marvel’s sales figures for the month of July.

Blogcritics interviews Mike Carey about his first novel The Devil You Know.

Kaplan is publishing graphic novels with deliberately difficult words (including definitions), reports Bloomberg. I can’t fault the idea, but I suspect teenagers aren’t looking to learn vocabulary words from their pleasure reading.

Wizard interviews Mike Mignola about the Hellboy 2 movie.

Publishers Weekly talked to Kyle Baker about his new series Special Forces.

Comics Reporter covers the recent episode of Anthony Bourdain’s TV show No Reservations set in Cleveland, in which Harvey Pekar played a large part.

Panel and Pixel has a collection of stories about how not to break into comics.

San Francisco Bay Guardian talks to Kyle Baker.

Kevin Melrose at Newsarama lists what looks like everything coming out this week. (If you buy all of it, I bet Steve Geppi will come and personally thank you.)

Comics Reviews

Eddie Campbell reviews Clare Briggs’s Oh Skin-nay! The Days of Real Sport.

Wizard reviews Tangent Comics Volume One and The Complete Bite Club.

Blogcritics reviews Good As Lilly by Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm.

The Boston Globe reviews Gilbert Hernandez’s Human Diastrophism.

Augie De Blieck, Jr. of Comic Book Resources reviews two recent Fantastic Four comics, one of which he loved and one of which he didn’t.

Comic Book Bin reviews XXX Scumbag Party by Johnny Ryan.

Punked Noodle reviews Osamu Tezuka’s Ode to Kirihito.

Eye on Comics digs up a copy of X-Men #121 at a flea market.

At The Savage Critics, Graeme MacMillan reviews Batman #668 and others.

(more…)

The Mighty Motor Sapiens Roar To Life

The Mighty Motor Sapiens Roar To Life

  • News
  • August 29, 2007

Rowdy.com has partnered with Insight Studios Group to offer The Mighty Motor Sapiens, a new online daily comic strip that combines high speed action, fast cars, humor and the entire planet being taken over by lizard people.

With new installments appearing every weekday beginning September 3, 2007, the story begins 18 months after the world has been taken over by a race of the Morisoni, lizard people from the center of the Earth. Despite the odd change in circumstances, life has continued and things seem disturbingly okay. Sure, they took out Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Paris, but on the other hand they took out Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Paris. And for some reason they wiped out everyone’s credit histories, too.

Now the Morisoni control the world and their military bases are everywhere. The Lizards live among us, but this new arrangement seems to be working. Four teenagers, Cam Corman, Hannah Barbario, Gigs Brewster and Maddie Brewster, haven’t seen much of an impact from the changes. Yet.

Springing from the minds of writer-artist Daniel Krall (Oni’s One Plus One), writer-artist Mark Wheatley (Frankenstein Mobster), and writer Robert Tinnell (Feast of the Seven Fishes), The Mighty Motor Sapiens was created as an exclusive feature for the Rowdy.com web community.  The strip will be written and drawn by Krall with additional material by Wheatley and Tinnell. All three creators are veterans of both print and online comics. They are joined by inker Craig Taillerfer (The Chelation Kid), with colors provided by Krall’s studio and lettering by Matthew Plog. The strip is produced by Insight Studios.

Comic Foundry launch party tonight

Comic Foundry launch party tonight

  • News
  • August 29, 2007

Laura Hudson posts that there’s a release party tonight for last week’s Comic Foundry release at The Irish Rogue, 356 W 44th St., NYC. from 6 PM to whenever. They’ll be giving out a limited number of gift bags to the first however many people get there, containing a free issue of Comic Foundry, a comic book pulled directly from Laura’s or Tim Leong‘s personal collection, and potentially other… mysteries.

Laura adds: "Wednesday also happens to be ladies night at The Irish Rogue, which means 2 for 1 Cosmos for the fairer sex. We aim for female friendliness!  Bring your women, your men, your lovers, your friends, and your thirst for liquid courage–we’re having a party, and you’re invited!"

ELAYNE RIGGS: The Stupid — It Burns!

ELAYNE RIGGS: The Stupid — It Burns!

  • News
  • August 29, 2007

I’m sure most readers will agree that we all bring our own unique views to our entertainment experiences, our own desires and prejudices and lifetimes of baggage. And many of us try to partake of those experiences bearing that baggage in mind, allowing for it or disclaiming it or even using it to enhance our POVs.

For the average consumer, baggage is something you try not to let get in the way. But a certain subset clings to it like a badge of honor. That’s the portion of the crowd that brags of specialized knowledge, and will accept nothing less than that same level of specialization in their entertainment. Which is silly, in my opinion. You may be a rocket scientist, or a medical intern, or a lawyer, or even a secretary, but the people who write movies and comics and whatnot, well, they’re just storytellers.

This is not to say that a certain verisimilitude isn’t welcome. A story needs to be internally consistent, after all, to keep you involved in its world. But if you’re from Cleveland and the movie you’re watching is supposed to be set in that city and it’s pretty darn clear that it was shot in Vancouver, it can take a bit more effort to stay with that story when you keep going "But that’s not the street I used to walk to school on!" If you’ve just come home from a day in the newsroom, opened up the latest Superman comic and noted that the Daily Planet scenes don’t resemble your job in the least, I can understand the irritation. Many’s the time I’ve watched actors pretend to type or play a musical instrument as just something to do with their hands, not as though they were actually performing the task at hand. (By the way, how things have changed on the typing front since the advent of PCs and laptops; one of the things I love about the TV show The Office is how the actors actually type IMs to each other during filming; they look like they’re at their desks doing actual office work, just like me!)

But obsessing on these comparatively minor things to the point where they ruin your enjoyment of the story is, to my mind, just silly. It’s not seeing the forest for the trees. Even if they’re palm trees and the story’s set in a northern climate.

(more…)

Bourdain and Pekar do Cleveland

Bourdain and Pekar do Cleveland

  • News
  • August 28, 2007

At last, one of my favorite TV shows paying homage to the comic book format!  Writer Anthony Bourdain, the host of the Travel Channel show No Reservations, is a big fan of Cleveland’s own Harvey Pekar, many of whose daily-life adventures in American Splendor have been drawn by Gary Dumm.  Last night’s episode of No Res had Bourdain visiting his friend Michael Rulhman in Pekar’s town, with all the scenes fading to and from Dumm’s illustrations.  It was pretty cool, and not likely to be repeated soon (I checked the listings), but we’ll always have the comic created for the event.  Enjoy!

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