Category: News

Hey kids! It’s cool to create comics! TV says so!

Nickelodeon has given the green light to a new mixed live-action/CG animated series, The Troop, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Writer/producer Jay Kogen (Frasier, Malcolm in the Middle and many others) will serve as showrunner for the new science fiction comedy series, from executive producer Tommy Lynch (South of Nowhere, The Secret World of Alex Mack, etc.). 

Slated to launch in fall 2009, The Troop revolves around Jake, an average teen played by Nick Purcell, who wants to create his own comic book series, who is enlisted by a school counselor to join “The Troop”  a secret society that protects the world from monsters and creatures.

Comics writer Mark Sable was detained by TSA security guards at LAX this past weekend when they discovered inflammatory material in a script for Sable’s new BOOM Studios miniseries Unthinkable. The comic series follows members of a government think tank that was tasked with coming up with 9/11-type “unthinkable” terrorist scenarios that now are coming true.

Sable was detained while traveling from LAX to NYC to attend a signing for the premiere of Unthinkable #1 at Jim Hanley’s Universe this Wednesday, May 13th.

Fans and friends were made aware of the TSA detention when Sable Twittered about the events after he was released.

Sable wrote BOOM! Studios a more in-depth version of the encounter to release to the public:

“Flying from Los Angeles to New York for a signing at Jim Hanley’s Universe Wednesday (May 13th), I was flagged at the gate for ‘extra screening’. I was subjected to not one, but two invasive searches of my person and belongings. TSA agents then “discovered” the script for UNTHINKABLE #3. They sat and read the script while I stood there, without any personal items, identification or ticket, which had all been confiscated.

“The minute I saw the faces of the agents, I knew I was in trouble. The first page of the Unthinkable script mentioned 9/11, terror plots and the fact that the (fictional) world had become a police state. The TSA agents then proceeded to interrogate me, having a hard time understanding that a comic book could be about anything other than superheroes, let alone that anyone actually wrote scripts for comics.

“I cooperated politely and tried to explain to them the irony of the situation. While Unthinkable blurs the line between fiction and reality, the story is based on a real-life government think tank where a writer was tasked to design worst-case terror scenarios. The fictional story of Unthinkable unfolds when the writer’s scenarios come true, and he becomes a suspect in the terrorist attacks.

“In the end, I feel my privacy is a small price to pay for educating the government about the medium.”

It’s a good thing the TSA didn’t know that Mark Sable’s destination, Jim Hanley’s Universe, is right across the street from the Empire State Building. Bad enough it was a script for BOOM!

The STAR TREK crew warps into the record books with a Big Box Office, but what do all these numbers mean anyway? We break them down for you plus Showing Soon on Facebook, it’s WATCHMEN. Then there’s GUITAR HERO the TV series and that man on the right – merely the most powerful man in America – no joke!

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In the tradition of the old “astronaut vs. caveman: who wins in a fight?” ComicMix inaugurates a new feature: Friday Night Fights!

This week’s battle is pretty close to “astronaut vs. caveman”: the red-blooded Canadian against the green-blooded Vulcan! Mutant vs. Hybrid! Yes, it’s Spock vs. Wolverine!

So who wins? Explain your reasoning in the comments section.

There’s something about the comics form that just lends itself to stories about people in outlandish costumes trying to beat the snot out of each other, often in unfeasible ways using silly powers or items. From giant mecha to Asterix to Spider-Man, it’s just not comics unless you get something ridiculously large dropped on your head, have it shatter into pebbles, and then you shake it off and fight on. And the four books this week all are about fighting in one way or another, and, speaking of funny costumes…. 

Maid War Chronicle, Vol. 1
By RAN
Del Rey Manga, April 2009, $10.99

Prince Alex II of Arbansool is the usual feudal scion – pig-headed, self-centered, and barely smarter than a block of wood – but he’s the last hope of his kingdom after the forces of fiendish Nowarle (neighbor to the south) invade and overrun the capital. He barely escapes with a few retainers. Seven retainers, to be precise. Actually, seven maids.

(What is it with the Japanese and maids? At least these girls are dressed in the semi-sensible Japanese maid style, with long sleeves, aprons, and full skirts trimmed in lace, rather than the “sexy French maid” mostly-lingerie look I’m sure they would have had if this book was created by an American.)

So Alex is loud and demanding and only rarely in touch with reality (and then mostly by accident). He also would be fondling the girls all day long if he weren’t a good foot shorter than any of them, and if they’d take it – luckily, they mostly don’t. Since he’s also convinced of his own power and righteousness, his first order of business, upon escaping the capital, is to run to an ancient shrine that holds twelve secret old weapons. The weapons can only be wielded by knights, so Alex declares the maids a new – sexy – order of knights devoted to protecting only him, and the girls then pull a variety of unfeasible and silly-looking weaponry out of a table.

And then Alex and his girl knights – untrained, still in maid costumes, and generally unsure how their new super-duper magical weapons actually work – set off to find a garrison of still-loyal soldiers and then retake the kingdom. That’s going to take a lot longer than Alex expects, of course.

Maid War Chronicle is silly and generic and full of panty shots – you’d think it would be tough with skirts that long, but you didn’t count on the fiendish ingenuity of the being that calls itself RAN – but it never fails to be fast-paced and entertaining. And it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect a manga called Maid War Chronicle to be, so I certainly can’t fault it there. (more…)

Remember how I was saying just Wednesday that the Kindle might finally be ready for comics? Well, not at this publisher price point. Cynopsis reports:

Judging from the revenue margins Amazon is seeking, the Kindle many not be the lifeline newspaper publishers were hoping for after all. Dallas Morning News Publisher and CEO James Moroney went on the record stating that Amazon was demanding 70% of subscription revenues during Wednesday’s U.S. Senate subcommittee meeting on the future of newspapers. (Paidcontent found this link to CSPAN’s coverage of the event.) What’s more, Amazon is demanding that newspapers sign over all electronic distribution rights to their content on devices other than the Kindle. (And the studios thought Apple was monopolistic.) News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch also chided Amazon’s approach during his earnings call, saying that News Corp. would strike no deals with Amazon: “We will not be ceding our content rights to the fine people who created the Kindle.”

If they’re trying to push Murdoch around with numbers like that, I can’t see them cutting DC or Marvel a break, let alone Archie or Avatar.

I’ve waited years to write a headline like that and have it be true.

Scott Meherg, 28, pleaded guilty to theft yesterday for obtaining
Amazing Spider-Man #2 from Graham
Crackers Comics in Naperville, IL in 2007 with a $980.99 forged bank check, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The comic book has never been recovered, and the judge ordered Meherg to pay $980.99 in restitution.

Meherg fled the area after police
identified him through a photo lineup and his fingerprints on the phony
check but was arrested last fall on a deceptive
practices charge. He faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

J. Jonah Jameson could not be reached for comment.