Sequential Tart’s Editor-in-Chief Katherine Keller has even made it easier for your money to go farther: if she gets forty people to kick up $25, she’ll match all of their contributions, $1000 bucks out of her own pocket, and Carl Rigney has volunteered to match her donation– so $25 from you means $75 to the CBLDF. She’s got ten more contributors to go as of this writing… but don’t think that you get off the hook if they hit the numbers, they need every dime that they can raise for the Gordon Lee fight. (Hat tip: ¡Journalista!)
Don’t people have day-jobs? Accordiing to Variety, Transformers made $8.8 million on Monday, playing on 3,050 screens around the country. Today, it adds another 500 screens, and will probably make even more money. The studios behind the movie (Paramount and DreamWorks) hope to earn more than $100 million by Monday, in what they describe as a 6 1/2 day weekend.
Ratatouille earned $7.5 million. Live Free or Die Hard made $4.3 million.
Transformers stars upcoming ComicMixer Mark Ryan as the voice of Bumblebee.
Mark Evanier shows off the cover to his upcoming book Kirby: King of Comics, and explains what this book is (a big, heavily-illustrated look at Jack Kirby’s comics work) and what his next book will be (a much longer, text-heavy biography of Kirby).
Columnist Alex Stein, in the Guardian, likes to argue with a friend about the use and importance of science fiction. (He’s on the side of the angels) Sadly, Stein seems to be content to argue that there’s some good stuff out there amid the dreck, rather than calling the friend on his category error – the unnamed friend stacks the deck by using the new Transformers movie as the SF exemplar and “some new French slow-burner about adultery” as his example of “real life.” The equivalents of a good serious “real life” movie are movies like Gattaca, or 2001, or Blade Runner; if you want a “mainstream” comparison movie on the same level as Transformers, you’ll have to dig up something likeMonster-In-Law. Defenders of SF need to point out that there’s just as much “real life” dreck as fantastic dreck – and our dreck at least has cool pictures to go with the lousy plots.
The Baltimore Sunreports on an exhibition of Star Wars paraphernalia at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore. The materials are all from the collection of Thomas Atkinson, who runs the Star Toys Museum.
"We’re never gonna beat this if belief is what we’re fighting for." – John Mayer
As Americans gather today to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence 231 years ago, many of us find ourselves in quite a different place than we believe our founders envisioned for this country. Each day brings more tragic results of the radicals currently in power thumbing their nose continually at Benjamin Franklin’s observation that "Those that would give up essential liberty in pursuit of a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security" and frightening the populace into constant submission so they can retain this ill-gotten power. (Hang on — creating a climate of fear, isn’t that what terrorists try to do? Guess that means They’re Winning.) And without the assurance that our government will (or even can) do its job of seeing to the well-being of its citizens, many Americans do what people in their situation have done for centuries — they turn to institutions they believe will care for them, mostly institutions that "answer to a higher authority" in which they believe.
We’ve been talking a lot about perception and belief on ComicMix this past week. First Mike Gold tackled how people misperceive personal threats to their way of life when no such threats exist. For the life of me, I cannot imagine how these ideas get into their heads, and neither can anyone in the all-pervasive corporate-sponsored conservative-pandering media. Then I talked more about subjectivity and how some folks amazingly find the exact "evidence" to support their pet beliefs, rather than the other way around (using actual scientific procedure to observe first and then create a theory based on those observations). And the capper was John Ostrander’s column about dogma, rigid belief systems (whether religious or no) whose adherents will brook no dissenting opinions. The danger of dogma is the same as that of any fanaticism — that subjective perceptions are suddenly presented as objective ones, and individual beliefs replace reason and compromise with authoritarian systems such as theocracies.
And it ought to be obvious that theocracies are not Good Things in pluralistic societies because they leave no room for diversity of opinion.
The new episode of The Future And You went up for the beginning of the month; it includes conversations with Battlestar Galactica cast member Bodie Olmos, Walt (The Bananaslug) Boyes from Jim Baen’s Universe magazine, and the authors Robert Buettner, Mike Resnick, Randal L. Schwartz and Stoney Compton. How can you not want to hear what a man named “Bananaslug” has to say?
Episode # 40 of The Sci Phi Show is an introduction to the books and stories of Greg Egan.
According to the BBC, Runaway Bride star Catherine Tate is set to return to the TARDIS for the complete 13 week run of series four (a.k.a. season 30) of Doctor Who, reprising her role as Donna the runaway bride from last year’s Christmas special.
Previously, British media (including the BBC) reported Tom Ellis was going to stay on with the series, possibly in his season-ending role as Doctor Thomas Milligan. These reports have not been discounted – and, of course, it’s also possible that he would visit Torchwood, along with Martha Jones.
In any event, neither Donna the Runaway Bride, Dr. Milligan nor Dr. Jones are expected to be placed between The Doctor and the Titanic this year’s Christmas special. But, to quote Fats Waller, "one never knows, do one?"
Thanks and a tip o’the hat to our pal Lisa Sullivan.
Marvel Comics announced recently that they will be canceling Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Sensational Spider-Man, while upping Amazing Spider-Man from monthly to three times a month.
Editor Steve Wacker explained to WizardWorld, “It’s a chance to get more Amazing Spider-Man comics out there, quite honestly. It’s because we were already publishing three Spidey books, but what inevitably happens – and it’s happened for decades – is that the books that aren’t Amazing Spider-Man are the first ones that people drop when they need to re-adjust their lists. So the thought was combine what we’re already doing with three titles into one, make them each roll right into one another, almost like a weekly soap opera or television show, and so it’s one-stop shopping for your Spider-Man stuff. You know, historically, from Marvel Team-Up from Web of Spider-Man to Peter Parker to even the current books, no matter how good the stories were within there, they were rarely able to come to the same heights sales-wise as Amazing.”
Taking his lessons from running 52, the summer announcement over the creative team will likely involve key figures running the story and art with built in teams assisting both. Who they are and how they work will remain to be seen.
But, is the theory a correct one? Will Amazing, selling at over 100,000 copies a month work at that level? Or will the average monthly sale be closer to the 50-55,000 a month that the canceled titles were averaging? The Back in Black theme to the three titles these last few months should have bumped Sensation and Friendly closer to the flagship title, but the disparity remains sharp.
Odds are, once the dust settles, some four or five months after the changeover, the title will sell lower, possibly splitting the difference. If so, that puts it in the 70-75,000 range, which is exactly where Ultimate Spider-Man currently resides (down 50,000 copies or so from its first year numbers). The title has been pumping out 18 issues a year for a while now and the sales have been steady.
We get some strange mail here at ComicMix, but this one’s a bit more unusual than usual:
This July 13th, you can learn the history of New York City as you never imagined it! Count Dracula’s faithful servant, Dr. Jack Seward, will escort you through the Upper West Side of Manhattan, starting at Central Park and West 72nd Street. The late Dr. Seward will recount the history of some of the most famous spots, and how vampires played a role in that history! By the Count’s orders, he will reveal closely-guarded secrets of the vampire community. The Count may even join you himself; at the very least, he’ll be watching… $25 per person, payable on site. For full details, to register for July 13th, and/or to be added to our list for future tours, email Dr. Seward at glinzner@hotmail.com before noon on July 13th.
The New York Post (I read it only for the Page 3 girls, honest) reports that Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law is ending its run after 39 episodes. The series, which helped launch CN’s "Adult Swim" block back in the carefree days of September 2001, will air a new episode Sunday, July 15 (11:45 PM). That’ll be followed by a 30-minute sendoff special July 22 (also 11:45 PM), in which Harvey falls into a drunken spiral after his methods are questioned and his past legal wins are overturned.
No word on what will happen to the characters, although I understand Peter Potamus is supposed to appear on the next season of The Biggest Loser, Avenger has something lined up with Animal Planet, and Myron Reducto is going to show up on Heroes — although it will be a small part.
Pop culture madness takes no holiday as the Big ComicMix Broadcast jumps right into the week with the rubdown of the coolest comics and videos to grab on your day off… plus news of a YaBaDabba Marathon, Reviews of LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD and TRANSFORMERS plus proof positive that even a well rounded guy can strike gold with a mindless top 40 hit!
Press The Button – it’s safer than fireworks! Honest!
"We’re never gonna beat this if belief is what we’re fighting for." – John Mayer
According to the BBC, Runaway Bride star Catherine Tate is set to return to the TARDIS for the complete 13 week run of series four (a.k.a. season 30) of Doctor Who, reprising her role as Donna the runaway bride from last year’s Christmas special.
The 
