Category: News

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Interview: Josh Blaylock on ‘Voltron: A Legend Forged’

  • News
  • April 14, 2008

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For the record, I’m a child of the giant robot generation. I grew up pondering the life lessons of 1980s cartoon series such as Robotech and Transformers, and formulated complex theories regarding the place of Go Bots and Tranzor Z in the hierarchy of the universe’s massive mechas. Looking back on it now, I’m fairly certain I had the makings of a fairly impressive thesis on the subject of giant robots completed before I was 10 years old.

However, there was always one wildcard in my studies: Voltron.

The 1984 series Voltron: Defender of the Universe featured a giant mecha composed of five smaller lion-shaped robots. Each lion controlled by a young pilot. Voltron and the "Lion Force" pilots defended the universe against a host of threats that often took the form of monsters launched into battle via coffin-shaped shuttles. The forces at play in the series were equal parts magic and science, and the title character’s ever-changing list of powers and abilities called upon during the series’ long run caused me endless frustration in my attempts to rank Voltron alongside his peers.

In 2003, I found myself thinking about Voltron (and humming <a href=”

series’ theme song) once again when Devil’s Due Publishing began producing comics based on the Voltron series. Despite its highly praised development of the characters and mythos of the Voltron universe (including contributions from noted creators such as Mark Waid, Kaare Andrews and Dan Jolley), the series was cancelled in 2005 without concluding its final storyline.

Nostalgia for the character has endured, however, and it now appears as if 2008 will be another big year for Voltron and the Lion Force. Earlier this year, DDP released the Voltron Omnibus, a collection of the entire DDP run that includes the previously unpublished final issue of the 2003-2005 series. The Devil’s Due crew also announced the July release of Voltron: A Legend Forged, a five-issue miniseries that promises to take readers on "a spectacular quest, 1200 years into the past." The series will be written by DDP President Josh Blaylock, and feature interior art by G.I. Joe: America’s Elite artist Mike Bear.

I spoke with Blaylock about the new Voltron series and its place in the character’s complicated history, and picked his brain about the character’s role in the world of giant robots.  DDP also provided ComicMix with new art from the series, including both an inked and full-color version of the first issue’s Tim Seeley cover, as well as an E.J. Su variant cover featuring Voltron in its popular "Lion Force" form. Full-size versions of each cover are posted at the end of the interview.

COMICMIX: First, let me get the most general pair of questions out of the way: Why Voltron and why now?

JOSH BLAYLOCK: It’s been a while since we played with Voltron, but lately there seems to be something in the air. The DVDs are selling like crazy, the Reeboks shoes, the streetwear. All that, combined with the movie buzz, and it seems like a great time to kickstart a new Voltron miniseries, and who knows, maybe more. (more…)

Battlestar Galactica Interview: Mark Verheiden on Cylon Humanity and Boomer’s Motives

  • News
  • April 14, 2008

Welcome to the latest installment of Battlestar Galactica Weekly, our recurring Q&A with Mark Verheiden, co-executive producer of the hit Sci-Fi Channel series Battlestar Galactica. Each week, we’ll interview Verheiden about the events of that week’s episode, what those events might mean for both the season and the series, and hopefully unearth some clues about what to expect as the final season of Battlestar Galactic nears its conclusion.

Along with posing our own questions to Verheiden, we’re also taking questions from fans — so be sure to send your questions to me, your official BSG Weekly interviewer (chris [at] comicmix.com) after each episode airs. New episodes of Battlestar Galactica can be seen every Friday at 10 PM EST on Sci-Fi Channel. Previous interviews are available via the links at the end of this article.

This week, Verheiden answers questions about the second episode of Season Four, “Six of One,” which aired April 11, 2008.

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COMICMIX (from reader Mike): Is Sci-Fi hiring documentary filmmakers during the production of Battlestar? We’ve seen the short humorous videos for the video blog, but I mean longer Lord of the Rings-esque documentaries on the extended DVDs.

MARK VERHEIDEN: I don’t think there have been documentary teams roaming around, at least that I’ve seen, but I think Ron Moore plans to release more podcasts at some point, including ruminations from all the writer/producers on what the show has meant to them, fave episodes, etc. 

CMix (from reader Jeff):  Kara spoke of a yellow moon, yellow sun, and ringed gas giant while at Earth, but she also mentioned a comet and three blinking stars. This seems to foreshadow the Jesus legend. If the modified Greek mythology is what has shaped the human culture then the story must end with an Earth that has or can give rise to these gods, correct? After all if time is a closed loop, the end is the beginning.
 
MV: Unfortunately again, any answer I might give — from “yes” to “no” to “maybe” — takes us into spoiler territory, so I’ll just say “keep watching.”

CMix (from reader Katie): Was the scene between Kara and Roslin at the beginning of the episode meant to mirror the scene in “Home” when Sharon aims a gun at Adama and then turns it over to him to prove that she has free will?  If so, the very different way this showdown turned out, with Roslin firing on Kara, shows just how much has changed since Kobol.
 
MV: I don’t think it was meant to mirror that earlier scene, but the second part of your comment is certainly correct, in that much as changed for our characters emotionally since Kobol.  And you haven’t seen anything yet… (more…)

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DC’s Killing Fields, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • April 14, 2008

chp-9129134How many times can you run a stunt into the ground in one month before you just look like you’re totally bereft of originality? DC Comics’ June, 2008 solicitations, as published in Diamond Distributing’s Previews catalog, offers no less than six phony death and/or resurrection stunts.

Gotham Underground #9 asks the musical question “Will Penguin pay the ultimate price?” Well, who cares? If he’s dead, he’ll get better. Death has no sting in the DC universe.

Batman #678 is the third part of their “Batman R.I.P.” arc. “Is it truly the end for one of the world’s finest heroes?” the solicitation asks.  Forgive me, but how many times have the sundry world’s finest heroes R’ed in P? Hell, I’ll bet if you ask them they would have wanted to stay dead at least a bit longer in order to get some rest in peace. I should add Robin #165 to this list as it ties in to Batman #678 and has Robin holding a dead-looking Batman on the cover. Maybe – probably – the old buzzard isn’t dead. The fact is, it doesn’t matter.

Booster Gold #10: “Someone from his past must live and someone must die!” My wife informs me (happily) that Ted (Blue Beetle the Second) has already been resurrected. The death – if it actually happens – well, again, who cares? If it was somebody important, he/she/it wouldn’t be killed off in Booster Gold. Unless the stunt has grown so lame that DC is willing to bury it in a title such as this.

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Joe Staton Honored With Exhibit

  • News
  • April 13, 2008

joe3dicktracy-7749746Legendary comics ace Joe Staton will be honored with an art exhibit at at the Storefront Artist Project in Pittsfield, Massachusetts from August 2nd through the 31st.

Best known for his work on (please hold your applause until the end) Batman, E-Man, Femme Noir, Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, The Huntress, Jonny Quest, The Justice Society of America, Michael Mauser, Munden’s Bar, Power Girl, Rugrats, Scooby Doo, Superman, the Wild Thornberrys and about twelve thousand other creations, Joe’s most recent effort is the “new-look” Jughead four-parter that debuted in Jughead’s Double Digest #139 last week.

Joe’s online collaboration with writer Christopher Mills, Femme Noir, will be debuting as a pamphlet-form mini-series in June.

A long-time supporter of Manhattan’s Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, The Art of Joe Staton is being produced by the Storefront Artist Project in cooperation with the Museum. A series of related free workshops and programs is also part of the deal.

In association with the exhibit, Joe will also be conducting a free day-long workshop on August 3 which includes a drawing demonstration, sketch-a-thon, and discussion. For more information contact the Storefront Artist Project at 413-442-7201 or go to their website.

It’s very, very hard to imagine a guy who deserves this more than Joe Staton. Congratulations, ol’ timer!

 

 

 

ComicMix Columns for the Week Ending April 14, 2008

  • News
  • April 13, 2008

I’ve printed out the NYCC panel schedule but I don’t feel nearly ready for this coming weekend.  Stay tuned to these pages to find out where you can locate your favorite ComicMix people, including the ones who wrote these columns this past week:

So, it’s going to be a weekend of questions like "why did they schedule the Black Panel opposite Bryan Hitch’s spotlight and the Jenna Jameson ‘kick ass’ fiasco," isn’t it?

Happy Birthday: Chuck Dixon

  • News
  • April 13, 2008

Born in 1954 in Philadelphia, Charles “Chuck” Dixon grew up reading comic books. He did his first comic book writing, on Evangeline for Comico, in 1984—his wife (since divorced) Judith Hunt drew the book.

A year later, Marvel editor Larry Hama hired Dixon to write back-up stories for The Savage Sword of Conan. In 1986 Dixon added Eclipse to his list of employers, writing for their Tales of Terror anthology and then for Airboy. The following year he started Alien Legion for Marvel’s Epic line.

In 1990, Dixon caught the eye of DC editor Denny O’Neil, who invited him to write a Robin mini-series. That led to more work within the Batman group, and Dixon wrote Detective Comics #644-738, including several major Batman story arcs.

To this day Dixon is considered one of the most prolific Batman writers in the character’s history.

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Skipalong Rosenbloom, by Michael H. Price

  • News
  • April 13, 2008

skipalong-rosenbloom-1s-6655858“In the days before the cultural faucets of radio and television had become standard equipment in each home,” wrote the social critic Gunther Anders in 1956, “the [American public] used to throng the motion-picture theaters where they collectively consumed the stereotyped mass products manufactured for them…

“[The] motion-picture industry … continues the tradition of the theater,” added Anders, “… a spectacle designed for simultaneous consumption by a large number of spectators. Such a situation is obsolete.”

Anders’ influential gadfly manifesto, The Phantom World of TV, came fairly late in the initial outcropping of a Cold War between movies and teevee. Earlier during the 1950s, the movie industry had begun arraying such competitive big-screen ripostes to television as widescreen cinematography, three-dimensional projection – and such passive-aggressive lampoons of television as Arch Oboler’s The Twonky and Sam Newfield’s Skipalong Rosenbloom.

Anders’ perception of obsolescence for moviegoing has proved no such thing over the long stretch, of course – despite many movie theaters’ best efforts during the past generation to render the experience overpriced, inconvenient and unsanitary with cheapened operational standards and automated film-handling procedures. And yet film exhibitors as a class continue to raise the question, “Is moviegoing dead?” This, as if the post-WWII threat of mass-market television had never gone away despite a sustained détente between the big auditorium screen and the smaller home-viewing screen.

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ComicMix Radio: Look Closely and Get A Clue!

DC is warming up to jump from Countdown to Final Crisis with a “filler” called DC Universe #0. The clues are in the cover, so grab your eyedrops and we will explore it together (we’ve also posted a larger version of the cover after the jump), plus:

— Iron Man toys invade 7-11

— More Spider-Man on the WB plus another look at a legen-(wait for it)-dary Spidey series

— The rarest Harry Potter book – you might get a peek!

— Start the argument now – what were the “Top 5 Happiest Songs of the ’80s!”

—  Of course,  another  exclusive Graham Crackers Comics variant that could be in the mail to you – if you win by e-mailing us at: podcast [at] comicmix.com

We did the work – you just press the button!

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-9871082 or RSS!

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Harlan Ellison, Norman Mailer, and the Underdog, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • April 12, 2008

This was my week to consider the lives of little old Jewish men. On Tuesday, I went to a screening of Dreams with Sharp Teeth, a film about Harlan Ellison, where I was lucky enough to talk to the man himself.

On Wednesday, there was a memorial service for Norman Mailer at Carnegie Hall. If Mailer was there, it was, alas, in spirit only, and in the lives of those who read his work.

What struck me about these two events is that both men were bullied. Harlan talked about a group of boys who would beat him up every day after school. Mailer, a Jew at Harvard in the late 1930s and early 1940s, certainly was shunned more than his share. It was the era of John Wayne and Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. A man like Dustin Hoffman could no more be a leading man – a hero – than Larry Fine.

As one would expect, boys who experience cruelty grow up to be fighters. Both men have reputations for being opinionated, biting, passionate in their defense of their positions. Both have been known to throw a punch, physically as well as verbally.

And yet – they also both grew up to be charming men. Maybe my perceptions are flawed because I met them in the 1970s, when they were no longer young, but I don’t think so. I think they learned to be charming for the same reasons they learned to fight. Charm, with the sense of humor that so often tags along, is a great way to ingratiate oneself to people. Including bullies.

Girls can also be bullies, but of a different kind. I’m sure there are girls who beat up smaller kids, but it’s more likely that girls will bond together to exclude those they would ridicule. The bully is as likely to be the most beautiful, or the most popular, not the most physically strong. And, again, their victims learn to be charming.

Charm is the weapon of the outsider. There are many studies that demonstrate, for example, that women’s intuition is, in fact, a learned trait, that women learn to observe more men more closely than men observe women, because women have been more dependent on men’s approval, and need to keep tabs. African-Americans similarly know more about how white people will react than vice versa.

Bullies think they are hurting their victims. A punch in the face (or the kidney, or the knee) certainly hurts. At the same time, the bully’s victim learns to develop his own weapons. Perhaps she learns to hide meekly, and find a roundabout way home from school. Or he learns to find an adult or a bigger bully who can act as protector. Luckily for us, many develop a sense of humor or a winning smile or another talent that keeps away the pain.

For the artist, bullying can result in an empathy for underdogs of every kind, and the ability to understand different kinds of characters and situations. The best writers feel like outsiders and underdogs. Their work takes us to new worlds and lets us live new lives. Their success is the best revenge.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess of ComicMix, is a real fan of the movie, My Bodyguard.

Images of New ‘Iron Man’ Game Armor Revealed

  • News
  • April 11, 2008

One of the staple of comic book videogames is that players can unlock alternate costumes that the characters have had at one time or another. (My favorite is still the Spider-Man costume featuring a paper-bag head, Fantastic Four uniform and "Kick Me" sign pulled from Amazing Spider-Man #258 and available in the Spider-Man videogame that was released with the first film.)

Since Iron Man rarely settled on a suit for very long, it’s no surprise that Sega decided to include a variety of unlockable costumes in the upcoming Iron Man movie-based game in addition to the three models seen in the film.

To add a dash of "Armor Wars" to the eternal war over which console is the best, there will be exclusive armors for different systems: PlayStation 3 gets Ultimate Iron Man from The Ultimates. Xbox 360 gets the Silver Centurion Iron Man from Iron Man #200.

A gallery of 360-degree visuals of all the armor is posted after the jump: (more…)

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