Category: News

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Manga Friday: Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting

  • News
  • June 13, 2008

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This week it’s time to go back to what manga do best – or one of the things manga do best, anyway – stories about people fighting and killing each other, usually with long point bits of metal. To make it even more interesting, all three of the books I’m looking at this week are later books in series – and I’ve only seen the earlier books in one case. So this might just turn into another installment of Stump the Reviewer…

Freak: Legend of the Nonblonds, Vol. 3
Story by Yi DongEun; Art by Yu Chung
Yen Press, June 2008, $10.99

Three people –the increasingly oddly named Verna, Lorel, and Tublerun – live together (I think) and are the “Nonblonds,” a troupe of fighter/bounty hunter/martial artists, which apparently is a legitimate career in this world. (And that’s not unusual for manga, actually.)

None of them are blonde – which I wouldn’t have been sure about if Tublerun wasn’t the guy on the cover, but leave that aside – but I have no idea why that matters. Oh, and Verna – a dark-skinned woman, when the other two are light-skinned men – has been spending too much time in “Cerebro” lately, to make more money for someone who’s been in a coma for fifteen years.

Anyway, in this book, Tublerun – who I think was previously the goofball of the group, or perhaps even the explicit comedy relief, takes a solo job up near the North Pole. There, a girl named Marti, who calls herself the personal secretary of President Magnus and says the quest is an unofficial GIA event, tells an assembled group of tough characters that they are going to go into “an ancient site where the method of liquid metal-making was created” to find and retrieve a capsule for a vast reward.

With her is a guy who is, in order, Mr. Ecliptor, GIA’s security chief, and the son of “our President.” (He’s also, once he puts on a mask, the powerful and deadly Chroma – this may be a secret identity.) (more…)

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The Walk Of Fame, by Michael Davis

  • News
  • June 13, 2008

hollywood3-9385254Whenever I meet a celebrity, I say one of two things: either Can I have some money? or Black people love you. Which one depends on the star. When I met Al Sharpton it would not have been cool to say black people love you… because they don’t.

I’m kidding. It’s just much more fun to say black people love you to someone who’s not black. The looks on their faces are mostly priceless… mostly. I work in television and have the opportunity to meet a bunch of Hollywood types – actors, directors and producers. When I meet someone on business I’m not quite the knucklehead I am when I meet someone at a party or some other random place.

I’m always interested in what people who don’t work in the industry think of celebrities. If you read my column regularly you know I’m hard on some Hollywood stars and their behavior.  So I thought I would take the time to give you a few of my many positive encounters.

The first time I ever took a drink I was in the ninth grade and I was trying to be cool. My friend Earl and I were going to a party and we each had a bottle of really cheap wine. Earl had a bottle of Wild Irish Rose and I had a bottle of MD2020. That’s short for Mad Dog. How did two 13 years old kids get their hands on those bottles of wine? We went in and gave the clerk money, that’s how.

What about ID’s? (more…)

Video: David Tennant Talks ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Hamlet’

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

In a recent video interview with the BBC, Doctor Who‘s David Tennant chatted up Andrew Marre about the hit science-fiction series, his breakthrough role on Taking Over the Asylum and his upcoming turn as Hamlet.

I’ve embedded the full Andrew Marre episode below, but you can watch a higher-resolution version focused on the Tennant portion of the show, over at BBC News.

 


 

(semi-via LitG)

 

The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Hole Story

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

In today’s brand-new, full color episode of The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Maltese Duck, by Andrew Pepoy, our heroes find themselves in a mysterious, lost city.  In Michigan.  Will they escape?  Will Simone find an outfit with no ripped seams?  And why do lemmings always know?

Credits: Andrew Pepoy (Artist), Andrew Pepoy (Letterer), Andrew Pepoy (Writer), Jason Millet (Colorist), Mike Gold (Editor-In-Chief)

More: The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck

 

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Happy Birthday: Two-Face

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

twoface-6656997Harvey Dent was young, charismatic, idealistic, and driven—at 26 he was the youngest District Attorney Gotham City had ever had, and the press dubbed him “Apollo” for his good lucks and his meteoric rise.

Dent’s idealism was also flexible enough that he recognized the good Batman did, even if the Dark Night Detective didn’t always follow the rules. The two wound up becoming staunch allies, even friends, and their passions for justice actually complemented each other.
 

Until, one June 12th, Dent reached the high point of his career—prosecuting Sal “Boss” Maroni for murder. Unbeknownst to Dent, his own assistant Vernon Field worked for Maroni, and when Maroni was forced to take the stand Field handed him an antacid bottle filled with sulfuric acid. Dent got up to cross-examine Maroni, displaying his key evidence—Maroni’s good luck charm, a two-headed coin he always carried, which he had carelessly left at the scene of the crime.

Maroni then hurled the acid—Batman tried to intervene but only managed to deflect the attack so Dent caught the acid on the left side of his face and on his left hand instead of across his entire face. The attack did not kill him, as Maroni had planned, but did leave Dent permanently disfigured—in mind as well as body.

The horribly scarred D.A. snapped and turned to a life of crime and violence himself, scarring one side of Maroni’s coin and flipping it to determine his actions whenever presented with a choice between good and evil. And thus Two-Face, one of Batmnan’s most dangerous villains, was born.

Free Download of ‘The Middleman’ Pilot Episode

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

For those of you who are iTunes-enabled, the first episode of the new ABC Family series The Middleman, based on a comic book series by former Lost writer and producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, is currently available as a free download. The series premieres this Monday, June 16, at 8 PM on ABC. 

The episode will only be available for a limited time, so make it a point to snag it as soon as you have a chance.

For those who aren’t familiar with The Middleman, the series chronicles the adventures of a secret agency whose slogan is "Fighting evil so that you don’t have to." The Viper Comics series was filled with well-scripted humor, crazy science-fiction gadgetry, over-the-top action and a never-ending supply of creepy-crawly tentacled things for the heroes to battle. After picking up a copy of the first volume a few years ago (there have been a total of three volumes published thus far), I became a big fan of the series — so the news that a television adaptation was in the works was a nice surprise indeed.

Grillo-Marxuach initially conceived the story of The Middleman as a television project, but Paul Dini convinced him to kick it off as a comic. The pilot episode of the series was written by Grillo-Marxuach, who also serves as executive producer of the series.

 

(via beaucoupkevin)

ComicMix Radio: Feeling the Rush From MoCCA

Meet award-winning publisher and writer Tyler Chin-Tanner and step into his fast-paced world of adrenaline, as well as the upcoming American Terrorist. Tyler was just one of the people we met at MoCCA — before things got “hot,” plus:

— Marvel adds a cover to Invincible Iron Man

— Fox revamps their fall TV lineup

— Chuck Dixon and DC = splitsville

Kindly press the button and  away we go!

 

 

 And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-8345293 or RSS!

 

The Weekly Haul: Reviews for June 12, 2008

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

An odd blend of comics this week, with four new series, a couple of landmark issues (Invincible hit 50 and The Goon hit 25) and Geoff Johns making sure we remember why he’s THE MAN when it comes to superhero comics. On that note…

action866-3745456Book of the Week: Action Comics #866 — As in Green Lantern, Johns mines DC’s history for revelations that make big waves for today’s heroes. This issue marks the start of his Brainiac storyline, which begins with Braniac’s shockingly brutal theft of Kandar from Krypton.

That campy relic of Superman’s Silver Age becomes a tense and believable moment even before Johns uses it to lay out a mystery in the present (a Brainiac robot steals a sample of Superman’s blood while the main Brainiac seems imprisoned in his own ship). Check out the ComicMix interview with Johns about the story.

It’s that rare first issue of a storyline that delicately lets readers know something big is in the works without ramming that point down anyone’s throat. It’s epic but never self important.

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s the best Daily Planet sequence in a Superman comic in years, highlighted by this exchange about the newly returned Cat Grant. Lois: “I bet she has TMZ tattooed on her butt.” Clark (lifting his glasses): “I don’t see it… Kidding.”

Runners Up:

The Goon #25 — The return of Lazlo has the Goon thinking about turning tail, which shows just how lousy Eric Powell has made things for his scar-faced protagonist. It’s not as funny as your typical Goon tale, but that’s a good thing. And the end speaks for itself: “The war starts now!”

Powell’s art is in its finest, breathtaking form in this issue, from action sequences to emotional lulls. With his smooth designs and slight exaggerations, Powell is something of a modern Norman Rockwell who likes to draw demons being chopped up with cleavers instead of idyllic slices of life.

Captain Britain and MI 13 #2 — This series is essentially an answer to the question: What would Secret Invasion be like if Neil Gaiman wrote it? The British heroes continue to struggle to protect their homeland’s stores of magic from the invading Skrulls, which is complicated by old disagreements in the magical world and, of course, the apparent death of Captain Britain.

Even more than that other Skrull series, this book is capturing the “fate of the world in the balance” vibe, and it creates an interesting dichotomy between the surgically precise Skrull invasion and the unpredictable world of magic. (more…)

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Interview: Emily Horne and Joey Comeau on ‘A Softer World’

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

asw3-200-7130368I’ve been reading A Softer World off and on for the last three years, but I have a good reason for my my irregular visits to Joey Comeau and Emily Horne’s photo-based webcomic.

The fact is, it’s hard to predict what emotion I’m going to feel when I take the plunge into a new iteration of ASW and its text-over-photograph, three-panel world. With other comics, I can usually anticipate the laugh or, in some cases, the snark-fueled sense of satisfaction the latest strip is likely to provide. Heck, with most strips I can at least anticipate learning the next plot point in an ongoing storyline.

ASW, however, is always a gamble.

One strip can prompt hysterical laughter, while the next can only make you shiver and and wonder what the unholy hell was going on in its creators’ minds when that strip was conceived. ASW can explore complex social issues one moment and the depth of depravity in the next.

The point is, I like having at least an inkling of what I’m jumping into before my feet leave the ground — so that’s why A Softer World has always been one of the more irregularly visited comics on my reading list. But I’m not too dense to realize that therein lies its appeal.

In fact, it was one of the more recent, controversial episodes of ASW, sent to me by a friend who is far more willing to suffer the emotional highs and lows of this tremendously creative series, that prompted me to roll the dice and become a regular reader once again — and to contact its creators about this interview.

COMICMIX: With most comics, script usually comes first and art later, but you go at it in reverse with A Softer World. Can you tell me a bit about the creative process for ASW? How does a strip typically come together for you?

EMILY HORNE: When we were both in Halifax, we used to be able to be much more collaborative about it. ASW started with us taking a typewriter and a stack of photos to the all-night copy shop and making a mess of comics all at once. Now that we live on opposite sides of the continent, it’s a bit more difficult. I usually make up three or four comics at a time and upload them for Joey to look at. He comes up with text for them as inspiration (and our 3x a week posting schedule) demands. If we are both online before it goes up, we’ll edit together.

JOEY COMEAU: Also, it’s worth noting that we try to keep the relationship between the images and text interesting and not always a literal illustration. Often times, the picture just feels like it goes with the text, even though they both seem to involve different things. Or, it’s also fun to have a conflict between the two. Very serious people making very serious faces, and ridiculous text.

(more…)

Alone Together In the Dark, by John Ostrander

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

lab06popcorn-posters-6676198I remember the first time I saw the film Casablanca. It was at the 400 Theater in Chicago, just up Sheridan Road from Loyola University where I attended college. It was on the bill with Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam, an obvious but terrific double feature. I went stag but was lucky to get in at all; the small theater was packed.

I had missed or ignored Casablanca up until this point. I’m not sure why; I liked old serials a lot. The movie had certainly played on TV enough. I’d seen bits here and there or seen send-ups of it; callow youth that I was, I thought it wasn’t for me. Part of it was my own perverseness; my immediate reaction, on being told by everyone else that I must see this or I must hear that or I must read such and such is to say, “No, I don’t.” I get stupid stubborn about such things some times. Being told I would love the film I, of course, refused to see it. Finally, my curiosity overcame my perverseness and I sneaked off to view it without anyone else.

As I said, I went stag but I soon discovered I wasn’t alone. I was part of an audience, folks who mostly knew and loved the film. At the end of the singing of La Marseillaise, they cheered. When Captain Renault said, “Round up the usual suspects,” they cheered again. They laughed out loud at the funny lines (the movie is incredibly witty and they had actors who knew timing) and listened with rapt attention to Bogart’s speech at the end. Their delight and enthusiasm was catching on its own. And then there was the film itself.

(more…)

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