Category: News

Embrace Your Inner Pig, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • September 15, 2008

Are you a pig, or are you a sheep? I’m a pig, myself.

Contrary to popular opinion – particularly these past couple weeks – pigs are clean, intelligent, productive, and necessary to our eco-system. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and while I must admit pigs do nothing for me, I’m not here to pass judgment on animal lovers.

Sheep are useful. I haven’t checked out their SAT scores, and they seem pleasant enough. While I understand they are more appealing than pigs in certain farmland circles (including at least one semi-famous 1960s comics artist who bragged about it) and lanolin is comforting stuff, they, too, evade my wandering eye.

As colloquial phrases, neither one is held in very high regard. Being a pig has come to mean being ugly (totally unfair), being stubborn (probably fair), and/or being a miscreant police officer (tacky).  Being a sheep has come to mean being totally passive, one who follows the sheppard’s demands mindlessly, even to one’s own detriment.

Ergo, I’d rather be a pig than a sheep. But I’d rather be a sheep than an idiot.

Last Friday, Michael Davis commented about the Palin-the-Phony-Pig non-scandal, and he did so with his typical charm, wit, and aplomb. I have no intention of repeating his argument.

Actually, the whole thing sickens me.

Not the fact that McCain would seize upon a comment of Obama’s that had nothing to do with Palin and turn it into such. That’s campaigning for you, and one of the ways we can determine the make of person running is the way he or she conducts his or her campaign. McCain’s a scumbag who, according to his campaign “doesn’t speak for the campaign" (to quote McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds). Fine. We know McCain, and by now we know Palin, her ethics, her family values, and her supporters’ stand on hypocrisy and blatant lying. I’m good to go here. (more…)

‘Space Ghost Coast to Coast’ Volume 5 is Available

  • News
  • September 15, 2008

TV Shows on DVD reports A fifth volume of Space Ghost Coast to Coast is now available for sale, but only through special sales channels.  The 1999 episodes had the intergalactic rival to Larry King chat with Conan O’Brien, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tenacious D, Hanson, and Willie Nelson.

Just like Volume 4’s 1998 episodes, the collection will retail for $15 and boasts two hours of extras including:

•    Table Reads, Raw Interviews, and More
•    Mommentary – episode commentary from the creators’ mothers
•    Commentary on Mommentary – from creators on their mothers’ aforementioned commentary
•    Mommentary (Jellybean) – we think it’s commentary on the commentary of the commentary.

‘The Thing’ Sequel is a Prequel

  • News
  • September 15, 2008

Director Marc Abraham (Flash of Genius) told Latino Review that progress has been slow but steady on his prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing.

"This is more of a prequel than a sequel, there is your exclusive. Its going to be taking place in the same time frame,"he told the site. These are the events leading up to the 1982 film.”

The Thing from Another World was originally a novella by the great science fiction author and editor John W. Campbell.  Published as Who Goes There? in 1938, the novella was adapted into The Thing by Charles Lederer, Howard Hawks, and Ben Hecht into the 1951 thriller.  While the film was credited to Christian Nyby, Hawks did a great deal of unaccredited work behind the camera as well.

Carpenter remade the film in 1982 sticking closer to the original story and it starred both Kurt Russell and the effects from wizard Rob Bottin.

The story tells of a shape-shifting alien freed from its icy prison near a scientific research station in the remote Antarctic. After it killed a Norwegian team, an American team is sent in to investigate what happens and the story begins.  The new film looks like it will go back and explore what happened first.
 

ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending September 14, 2008

  • News
  • September 14, 2008

Our best wishes go out to all our readers in Texas and other states affected by Hurricake Ike, and we encourage folks who can afford it to help relief efforts (like this one) to help our fellow Americans.  Meanwhile, we at ComicMix continue to provide our own brand of relief in the form of cultural commentary in columns and features like these from this past week:

For more comic relief, check out Tina Fey’s appearance opening Saturday Night Live‘s new season last night:

 

Love those Tina Fey glasses!

‘Jack Brooks’ Monster Slayer’ to be Released October 7

  • News
  • September 14, 2008

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer is a new kind of movie hero and he’ll be making his home video debut after playing to a limited number of screens in the coming weeks before its DVD release from Anchor Bay on October 7 retailing for a mild-mannered $26.97

Jack Brooks: was directed by Jon Knautz (Moment of Truth), and produced by Neil Bregman, Trevor Matthews and Patrick White. John Ainslie and Jon Knautz wrote the screenplay from a story by Ainslie, Knautz, Matthews and White.

Anchor Bay says, “Yesterday, he was a plumber. Today, he’s trying to save the world. Meet Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. The legendary Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street) stars along with Trevor Matthews (who produced the film, in addition to playing the title role) and Rachel Skarsten (Birds of Prey).

“As a young boy, Jack saw his parents brutally murdered by monsters. Now he toils as a plumber, is saddled with an annoying girlfriend (Skarsten), attends therapy sessions that accomplish absolutely nothing, and is enrolled in night classes where he barely manages to stay awake.

“But when his professor (Englund) accidentally unleashes an ancient curse and begins to transform into a hideous monster, Jack must put down his plunger, prepare to do battle with the forces of evil, and confront his destiny. All Jack wants to do is put his past behind him, but some things just won’t stay buried …”

Robert Englund, at Comic-Con International, told ComicMix, “I’m here with the company Anchor Bay which really responds to the kind of horror-comedy kind of stuff that people like Sam Raimi with the Evil Dead films used to do. I don’t know if it’s a response to the number of big-budget horror failures of late or that there’s so much homemade stuff on YouTube now, but fans really seem able to watch something like a Hellboy 2 or a Dark Knight, which I love, but they also have room for movies like the ones I’ve been involved with lately such as Zombie Strippers, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer or Hatchet.

“It seems they can tune into a big $200 million blockbuster film one day and then also enjoy a little $2 million film we made mostly for fun. They’re what I like to call “cheap thrills.” I think there always has to be room for cheap thrills. I don’t know if it’s political or if there’s too much CGI or something but maybe that’s what movies like Saw or Hostel are tapping into — people’s need for something more simple and fun.”
  (more…)

‘Burn’ Takes Box Office Prize

  • News
  • September 14, 2008

The Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading captured the box office crown this weekend, netting the duo a record setting opening of $19,404,000 according to estimates from Box Office Mojo.

The top five slots were a mixed bag with Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys in second place with $18,020,000; the Al Pacino/Robert DeNiro drama Righteous Kill took $16,500,000 despite tepid reviews; and The Women  nabbede $10,088,000 and mostly negative buzz  with the comedy The House Bunny banking $4,300,000 (totaling $42,154,000).

After that, returning films were all up and down the charts as people turn their attention to more serious fare, the new television season and the local and national elections.  As a result, holdovers such as Tropic Thunder, Death Race, Traitor, and the like were seeing 40-50% decreases in audience.

In the genre, The Dark Knight topped the list with an additional $4,015,000 boosting the total to $517,680,000 while the next top performers included Rogue’s Death Race lapped up another $2,017,000 and Vin Diesel’s  Babylon A.D. banked just $1,770,000.
 

The Theory of Webcomics: What are Webcomics?

  • News
  • September 14, 2008

Help me Wikipedia, you’re my only hope! What are webcomics?

Oh, okay. They’re comics published on the web. That was easy. What else have we got? Over 18,000 exist, few are self-sustaining, blah blah blah, some are like newspaper comics and some are like graphic novels, yadda yadda yadda, sometimes use sprites, pixels, photos or 3D Poser art. Some are funny, some are not; and they cover a wide variety of genres.

But really, what are webcomics? “Webcomics” is the collective name we’ve given to sequential art that appears online. Scott Kurtz’s PvP is a webcomic, as is Scott McCloud’s Zot!, but so are the reprints available from Marvel Digital Comics and the online For Better or for Worse strips. Same name, wildly different products: Kinda like comparing a 1940s Superman story with Neil Gaiman’s Sandman or Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor. They’re all “comics”, but the similarity stops there.

We’re going to need a little more granularity: Typically, one will use the phrase “webcomics” to refer to creator-owned properties published originally and/or primarily online. Reprinted newspaper strips would still fall under “newspaper comics”, and reprinted superhero material would still be “print comics” or “comic books”. So our narrowed “webcomics” would include DC’s Zuda Comics, but not Marvel Digital or FBoFW. This is still hazy for cases like Diesel Sweeties, which started on the web, and published both on the web and in syndicated papers simultaneously (with different content) for a time; but it will do.

And that’s the definition I’m typically using and tend to focus on when I talk about webcomics. When I talk about how webcomics make money, I’m thinking about how Kurtz or McCloud would make money, not how Marvel would monetize their website. When I talk about “the most popular webcomics,” I don’t mean Dilbert. The collection of comics that are creator-owned, published online, usually maintained by one or two authors and typically full of geeky content are a community and a genre all their own, and deserve the same singular attention that we give to, say, sci-fi novels.

These are the comics that you find on Keenspot [link: http://www.keenspot.com/], Zuda, Blank Label, Dumbrella, Modern Tales, and similar collectives. These are the comics that get their start on Comic Genesis [link: http://www.comicgenesis.com/], Drunk Duck, or Webcomics Nation.

And yes, these are the comics that obey Sturgeon’s Law much more so than any others—after all, the barriers to entry are very low; anyone with a computer and a bunch of free time can create one. (I myself had a short-lived sprite comic, now gone from the web and never to be seen again.) This means they’re often drawn and written by hobbyists with limited time, no editors, and the occasional limited grasp of spelling and/or grammar. Which is, of course, the other reason I like to talk about them: There are some fantastic gems of comics to be found, if you know where to look.

I’m  going to be picking apart how these comics exist as an art form and what makes them different; discuss how they make money, why some do so much better than others, and which ones you really should be reading. Though be warned: The only thing that sucks up more of your free time that creating a webcomic is reading them.
 

Updating the Casting News

  • News
  • September 14, 2008

Updating two of this week’s stories, Michael Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly has reported that Katee Sackhoof’s schedule has forced her to give up her multi-episode commitment to Nip/Tuck.  She had hoped to film this after finishing her Battlestar Galactica telefilm, now in production, and the beginning of shooting the pilot to Lost & Found for NBC. She has been replaced by Rose McGowan who will film her episodes while training to begin the October shooting of Red Sonja.

Across the pond, the BBC has told Digital Spy that Paul McGann will not reprise his role as the eighth doctor in one of the 2009 Doctor Who specials. "There is no truth to the story at all,” they tersely told the site.  Stay tuned for developments.
 

‘Shrek the Halls’ Comes to DVD in Time for Holidays

  • News
  • September 14, 2008

shrek-the-halls-1694483Paramount Home Video has begun the Christmas shopping season with the announcement of Shrek the Halls coming to DVD on November 4.  The CG-animated television special debuted last holiday season and featured a brand new story, cramming all the trilogy’s characters into a thirty minute event.  It received good reviews and had an impressive audience averaging 22.7 million viewers.

The DVD will feature fun and interactive holiday-themed bonus material including a sing-along version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” starring the entire gang of characters from DreamWorks Animation’s Madagascar, a unique take on “Deck The Halls” with the hilarious Madagascar penguins and sing-along lyrics, a Gingy Dunking Game that tests your matching skills, plus a Shrek Carnival Craze game demo and cheat codes. 

The DVD will be available as a single disc in either full screen or widescreen, as well as in a special two-pack with Shrek the Third and in limited edition holiday packages featuring Holiday Shrek, Holiday Puss, Holiday Donkey or Gingy plush characters.

Disc details:

  • The Twelve Days of Christmas Sing Along—Join along and watch the entire Madagascar gang as they celebrate the holidays in style with their own take on the “Twelve Days of Christmas.”  Sing along to the Madagascar-inspired lyrics, including “lemurs leaping, foosas fussing and a penguin who made a loud squeak!”  In classic sing-along style, the words appear on screen as the characters perform.
  • Deck The Halls Sing Along—“Deck the halls, it’s time to party.”  This is your chance to sing along with everyone’s favorite Penguins from Madagascar.  Join Skipper, Private and Kowalski for their version of the classic holiday song as they get into the spirit of the season. 
  • Gingy’s Dunking Game—Test your skills at being a master baker and make sure you have plenty of flour as you try to match the Gingerbread cookies that come out of the oven with the Gingy that appears on screen. 
  • Shrek Carnival Craze video game demo and cheat code
  • DreamWorks Animation Video Jukebox
     

BBC Video Unveils Palin Box Set, ‘Sarah Jane’, ‘Doctor Who’

  • News
  • September 14, 2008

Coming to stores next month, BBC Video offers a 19-disc Michael Palin Collection – on October 7, 2008.

All of eight of Palin’s fascinating travelogues — Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole, Himalaya, Sahara, New Europe, Full Circle, Hemingway Adventure, and Great Railway Journeys – will be included, the last three new to DVD.  The box set contains 36 hours of content and over seven hours of bonus features, include interviews with Palin, behind-the-scenes featurettes, outtakes, deleted and extended scenes, as well as Polish and Russian subtitles on New Europe. The box set will retail for $249.92.

Michael Palin: Full Circle ($49.98) and Michael Palin: Hemingway Adventure with Great Railway Journeys ($34.98) will also be released individually.

Also being released on October 7 will be The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete First Season. This Doctor Who spin-off provides science fiction adventure for the whole family by melding the same mystique and wonder featured in the contemporary Doctor Who series with fun-filled hilarity. Elisabeth Sladen reprises her role as the investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith — one of the classic Doctor Who‘s most beloved companions. Accompanied by a fresh, young team including 13-year- old next door neighbor Maria Jackson (Yasmin Page, The Mysti Show), Sarah Jane sets out on a whole new round of escapades ranging from discovering mischievous alien plots to helping lost extraterrestrials return home. Boasting six hours of content, this four-disc set features all 10 episodes as well as cast and crew interviews, a Sarah Jane Smith video timeline, behind the scenes footage, and character and alien profiles. The box set will retail for $49.98. (more…)

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