Category: News

‘Popeye’ and ‘Betty Boop’ on Vuze

  • News
  • August 30, 2008

My Toons is a website featuring all manner of animated works from amateurs to the classic days of animation.  They have just partnered with Vuze, one of the new online video hot spots to offer a MyToons Cartoon Classics channel featuring Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons from the Fleischer Studios.  No Koko cartoons as yet, but you can’t go wrong with this sampler of terrific cartoons.

The deal will have My Toons creating additional fare for the website in the months ahead including international fare and HD offerings.
 

Shipping Late, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • August 30, 2008

This column is unusual in that I’m starting to write it in the doctor’s office. There’s no emergency – it’s just time for my annual mammogram and breast sonogram, and the doctors are running late.

My appointment was for 11 this morning. I arrived at 10:30 because I walked faster than I expected, and because I wanted to get the paperwork out of the way. Also, I’m compulsively early. My mother raised me to believe that if I’m not at least five minutes early, I’m inconveniencing everybody else. My grandmother took this a step further, waiting at the airport in New York before our plane had even taken off from Ohio.

I’ve been here for two hours.

The world is made up of people who are on time and people who are late. I imagine that we each drive the other bonkers. I know that, when I’m waiting for someone to arrive who is more than 15 minutes late (which is the window I allow because, hey, the subway could be screwed up), I’m furious that I might be missing something just because the person I’m waiting for doesn’t have the consideration to think my time is valuable.

I don’t know what people who are late are thinking, but I imagine they are thinking that life is so complicated, and there are so many things that demand their attention, and nothing ever comes out as they plan. Perhaps they also think that meeting times are just an estimate, and it’s no big deal if they are late. Perhaps they think I have nothing better to do than wait for them, and that it’s privilege enough to bask in their glory.

Ahem.

Oddly, I am not bothered when my comics are late. I know that retailers are annoyed – and worse, since it’s their money on the line – but I’m not. When I walk into the comic book store for my weekly fix, I don’t particularly care which books are available. I like enough different kinds of stories that I’ll be able to find something I’ll enjoy reading. Even if it’s a skip week, there will be something I haven’t read, or a new magazine. (more…)

Asian Superheroes in the Spotlight

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

“Superheroes in Asia” is the theme for eleven films to unspool at the Pusan Festival in Seoul, Korea. The event, running from October 2-10, will also feature other themes including "Ani Asia! A Leap of Asian Feature Animation 3”, “Romanian New Wave” and “2008 Asian Omnibus Collection”

According to the festival’s website, “It seems that Hollywood created super heros like Superman and Spider-Man are the only superheroes who protect our planet from the evil forces since we have gotten used to Hollywood blockbusters too much, but there are many unknown superheroes who are working double shifts for the world peace every country in Asia. Through 11 Asian superheroes in 11 films, audiences understand how the new Western genre ‘Superhero’ was introduced in historical, political, cultural and social part of Asia, and traces its transformation into Asia’s own superhero. Asian superheroes will bring not only the peace of the world but also clues about the modernization of Asia.“

Among the films will be director Bhandit Thongdee’s Mercury Man, described as a Thai take on Spider-Man; Yuri Abdul Halim’s Cicak-Man, Malaysia’s first superhero effort; and India’ s Rakesh Roshan-driected Krrish.
 

Hugo Awards add Graphic Novel Category

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

When The Watchmen won the 1988 Hugo Award for Best Novel, horrified science fiction purists saw to it that graphic material be excluded from consideration. Until now that has remained the case but next year, the World Science Fiction convention will be adding the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story to the ballot "to honor works in which illustrations are integral to the movement of the plot, whether or not text is present. The special Hugo, to be called Best Graphic Story, will cover any science fiction or fantasy narrative in graphic form appearing for the first time in 2008. It may potentially be ratified as an annual award at the WSFS Business meeting at the convention."

Material to be considered will be any science fiction or fantasy narrative in graphic form appearing for the first time in 2008. Those who purchased memberships to this year’s World Con, held in Denver, and next year’s, will be eligible to nominate works whern the process begins next spring while only those holding 2009 memberships will be eligible to vote for the winner.

The 2009 World Con will be Anticipation, held in Montreal from August 6-10 with guests of honor including Neil Gaiman, Élisabeth Vonarburg, Ralph Bakshi, Taral Wayne, Tom Doherty, David Hartwell, and Julie Czerneda.

Photosynth Hulk Demo

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

 

001-4224723I love tech. Especially new technology. Twitter, iPhone, Media Centers, etc. So I was reading about Photosynth from Microsoft Live Labs. It’s a new way of displaying photos.

Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to build a model of where the photos were taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos.

Basically, it creates a 3D model of a room or a subject from multiple photos of the same subject. An easy way to give a virtual tour or show a piece of merchandise from any angle a buyer could imagine.

Of course my first thought was, ‘This would rock if someone had a ton of pictures of the Watchmen Owlship from San Diego Comic Con.’ Sadly, I didn’t. But I could imagine it being a great tool to show off your action figure. So I grabbed my Smart Hulk action figure and tried it out.

Editor’s note: Evidently, this stuff won’t run on a Mac. It’s Microsoft; go figure. Anyway, you PC guys should follow the above link and Hulk-out.

nightmares-for-sale-1-1505342

Manga Friday: As Different As Possible

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

nightmares-for-sale-1-1505342

I’ve generally tried to organize the weekly columns around some sort of theme, but sometimes themes just serve to hide the variety and depth of the comics world (whatever country it might be from). So, this week, I picked three books with nothing at all in common (except a Japanese origin), just because:

Nightmares for Sale, Vol. 1
By Kaoru Ohashi
Aurora, November 2007, $10.95

Nightmares for Sale is an old-fashioned kind of horror story, with two enigmatic characters – they appear to be a grown man (Shadow) and a young girl (Maria), but she’s older than he is – who run a store that’s usually a pawnshop. Nothing at all good can happen when they enter your life, though they usually don’t seem to be directly responsible.

Each story in this volume has a different set of characters – usually teenage girls, or the kind of adults that teenage girls want to become – who meet the pawnshop owners, and then come to nasty ends. A bullied girl triggers a curse on the friendship rings her tormentors made her buy for all of them, and nastiness follows. A model wants to appear beautiful in photographs, and gets exactly what she asked for…but no more and no less. A young woman meets an abused boy in the street, and learns that their connection is much deeper than she imagined. A young boy tries to pawn his baby sister. And so on.

(more…)

Smallville Almost Begat Supergirl

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

At the Toronto FanExpo this past weekend, Laura Vandervoort confirmed she would appear in a single episode of the eighth and final season of the CW’s Smallville. Television’s Supergirl also made mention that there had been talk of her character once being considered for a spinoff series.  She merely said it didn’t pan out without providing any details.

She did admit to being a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan so working alongside Spike, James Marsters, was a thrill.  When she was just beginning her career, she wrote series creator Joss Whedon about wanting to audition for the show, something he remembered when they finally met.

Smallville, with new villains and the same old romantic triangles will return September 18.

If You’re Not There, You Just Won’t Get It – Conclusion, by Michael Davis

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

This is the last segment in this month long saga. If you are anything like me, you are sick of this. I mean four weeks of me reliving history is a bit much even for a guy who LOVES history. To that point, all I watch on TV is All My Children (the greatest show ever!), news, and The History Channel. I don’t even watch the shows I write or have created. I’m not kidding. I have never watched an episode of any show that I have been involved in.

I love history and I thought when I started writing this it would fill me with a wonderful sense of nostalgia.

Wrong. Now I’m just pissed.

Don’t get me wrong, Milestone is and will always be a BIG part of my life and career and I’m very happy to clear up some misconceptions about Milestone… particularly my involvement. Take a look at the previous installments to read about some of those misconceptions surrounding Milestone, Christopher Priest and DC’s “ownership” to name but a few.

Here’s my BIGGEST problem and the misconception that burns me to this day. There have been many, MANY articles and or books that have featured Milestone. A lot of them have said that I left Milestone quick, fast and in a hurry.

That, like the promise that Bush would be a good president, was a compete and utter lie. There’s more truth in the belief that the world is flat and women in L.A. don’t care about what you drive.

I was there the moment Milestone was created. I did not leave until two and an half YEARS after that. The writer Les Daniels (who’s books I enjoy, by the way) wrote in his book, DC Comics Sixty Years Of The World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes (1995) “A fourth partner, Michael Davis, quickly left to run Motown Animation.” (more…)

No Heroics: Not Warrriors, either

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

Our pal, Charlie Jane Anders, has a story up at i09 about a couple of sitcoms with a super-hero premise. One (the one we know for sure will be funny, at least based on <a href=”

clip) is from the BBC, titled No Heroics. The claim is that it’s based on Friends, but with a bar instead of a coffee house. The other, Boldly Going Nowhere, sounds a bit more sci-fi, and is the brain-child of the folks who bring you Sunny in Philadelphia.  

Alas, there is no discussion as to the person tending bar.  We have our own suggestion.

 

Paramount to use Mobile Comics

  • News
  • August 29, 2008

Paramount Pictures is embracing the mobile content aspect of movie marketing by hiring Singapore-based Omnitoons to craft comic stories based on current films.  According to Variety, the first film will be Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, a British feature from Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham). The movie is currently in release throughout Europe but lacks a domestic release date.

The Manga-style stories will appear on enabled phones in single panel manner with each strips taking up to four screens and short stories up to 20 screens. The next release to receive this treatment will be the Shia LaBeouf actioner Eagle Eye. Mission: Impossible, not currently an active film franchise, was also mentioned in the story indicating Paramount is examining their library for appropriate series to work with.

The mobile comics are now available in MMS and J2ME formats in the U.S., Australia, Europe and India. The phone companies will likely treat these promotional comics as premium content and will charge users for downloading each installment.

"By adapting movies to the mobile comics format, we believe fans will be able to extend their entertainment experience at their own pace, with the privacy of their phone," Karen New, CEO of Omnitoons, told the trade. "Omnitoons aims to continue our pursuit of bridging the mobile and movie industries by creating even more comics based on popular film titles through innovative and cost-efficient techniques.”
 

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