Category: News

So You Think You Have Problems?

  • News
  • January 27, 2008

Looking for that special comic from 40, 50, even 60 years ago to give your loved one struggling with VD, diabetes, AIDS, marijuana, guns or just about anything else?  Musician Ethan Persoff may have just what you seek.

Comics With Problems collects various unintentionally hilarious public service advertisements in the form of comics, with titles like Rex Morgan M.D. Talks About Your Unborn Child and A Message about Sniffing for Young People, and presents them in their entirety for your edification and amusement.  I D.A.R.E. you to keep away from perusing it!

Elsewhere on his site, Persoff’s other ambitious project on his site is collecting an online archive of all issues of Paul Krassner’s seminal zine The Realist, but I notice he doesn’t have any from the ’80s when I was getting it.  Persoff — call me, I still have ’em all.  And say, you wouldn’t happen to know of an old comic warning of the dangers of being a packrat, would you?

MySpace and BBC Reach Doctor Who Deal

  • News
  • January 27, 2008

MySpace users will soon be able to view bits, pieces and even full episodes of BBC original programming, thanks to a deal between the two entities announced last week.

According to the deal, the site’s video platform, MySpaceTV, will present selected programming from the BBC, including interviews and episodes of programs such as Doctor Who, Torchwood and Robin Hood. The deal is the first of its kind for social networking site MySpace, which is heavily concentrating its efforts on video and multimedia development.

MySpace launched MySpaceTV in June 2007. The BBC video channel on MySpaceTV can be found at: www.myspace.com/bbcworldwide.

 

Ingagi: Gorillas in Our Midst, by Michael H. Price

  • News
  • January 27, 2008

 

If a long-mislaid but vividly documented Depression-era motion picture called Ingagi should ever re-surface – in the manner that such lost-and-found titles as the 1931 Spanish-language Dracula or the 1912 Richard III have cropped up, in unexpected out-of-the-way locations – its rediscovery alone would justify a monumental curatorial celebration and an overpriced DVD edition.
 
The film probably does not deserve as much, except perhaps on grounds of sheer obscurity and an ironically monumental influence. Never having viewed the picture, I am of course ill prepared to dismiss Ingagi as an unwatchable trifle. But primary-source screening notes from my late mentor, the film archivist and historian George E. Turner, describe a muddled combination of silent-screen expeditionary footage with staged bogus-safari scenes.
 
Ingagi is hardly the first of its kind, but it appears to have established a precedent for presenting an imaginary journey into unexplored regions as an authentic record of a scientific expedition. As such, it collected a reported $4 million in box-office returns – back in the day when a buck was still a dollar – and inspired numerous imitations.
 
The cryptic title became a household word: Such comedy acts as the Three Stooges and Hal Roach’s Our Gang ensemble devoted gags to Ingagi, and as late as 1939–1940 the actor-turned-filmmaker Spencer Williams, Jr., invoked the term with an otherwise unrelated picture called Son of Ingagi. During a visit at Dallas in 1993, Julius Schwartz cited the original Ingagi and a 1937 knockoff called Forbidden Adventure in Angkor as inspirations for the recurring “Gorilla City” subplot that distinguishes DC Comics’ Flash series of the 1960s.

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James Kochalka on Life, Music and American Elf

  • News
  • January 26, 2008

James Kochalka has done it all, and we are green with envy.

Playback has a nice interview with Kochalka, the creator of the award-winning daily comic American Elf, the adults-only Super F*ckers and a host of other comics – not to mention the frontman for the multi-album band James Kochalka Superstar. In the interview, the multi-talented Kochalka reflects on the ways Elf has both documented and shaped his growth as a creator, father and, well… superstar.

When I started the diary, I was still working my job as a waiter at the Chinese restaurant, then a couple months into the strip I quit. The strip covers my entire career as a full-time superstar. When I quit I said I was quitting to be a full-time superstar, instead of just part-time as I had been.

Kochalka also discusses the recent design overhaul of the American Elf website, as well as his upcoming projects in both comics and music. One such project, as he explains it, overlaps between the two:

Yeah, I have a song called "Dragon Puncher" and I wrote this book called Dragon Puncher and I just can’t find anyone to publish it. I really drew it to appeal to little kids, but the whole thing is fighting. The whole book basically is this battle. I think the children’s book publishers are freaked out ‘cause it’s all fighting, and the publishers of more adult stuff are freaked out ‘cause it seems like it’s for little kids. Everyone needs to lighten up cause it’s an awesome book.

Seriously, what’s not to like about punching dragons?

 

Oprah Brings It

  • News
  • January 26, 2008

Not that it’s necessarily geek news, but fantasy writers beware! Using your eighth-grade trauma to inspire your superhero’s journey? Think again!  You can’t mix fiction with non-fiction, or you will get a taste of Oprah’s wrath. Well, let’s be honest. That’s if you claim that you actually were that superhero, and while we all know you’re prancing around in those blue-lined yellow action hero underpants on your own time, at least you’re not on national TV saying that it’s real, or bouncing on couches, like some numb nuts out there.

Today in 2006, James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, was ripped into a million little pieces by Oprah when it was found that a detail in his so-called autobiographical experience was shall we say, embellished. Let that be a lesson to all writers out there: when presented with the golden calf of Oprah’s Book Club, tread lightly. No detail shall be exaggerated, no recollection blurred, lest her wrath be set upon you and your stories. 

$100 Million Earmarked for Chinese Comics/Animation

  • News
  • January 26, 2008

The People’s Daily Online is reporting that the Chinese province of Guangzhou has announced plans to spend nearly $100 million over the next four years on developing the local comics and animation industry.

According to the report, more than 120 comics and animation companies are located in Guangzhou, generating nearly a fifth of the nation’s total revenue in these industries. The plan would devote 180 million yuan (approx. $24.9 million) each of four years to development of domestic comics and animation projects, with 50 million yuan directed toward nurturing, recognizing and promoting new talent, and the rest toward new "development parks" for companies.

"There is a promising market for the comics and animation industry as the city has introduced a series of preferential policies to support and develop the industry," Fan Xu, director of the Guangzhou press, publication, and radio and television (copyright) bureau, said earlier this week.

 

Jack Harkness to Keep Torchwood Burning?

  • News
  • January 26, 2008

John Barrowman, the actor who plays Capt. Jack Harkness on the hit BBC series Torchwood, says he plans to stay on the series as long as they’ll have him.

In this interview with SciFi Wire, Barrowman said he hopes to see a few more seasons come out of the darker, more adult-oriented Doctor Who spin-off series. He added that he has no plans to vacate his command of the Torchwood crew, either.

If I was asked to do Jack for the next five or six years I would do it with a big smile on my face, because I absolutely love playing him.

Barrowman also provided a few hints at what viewers can expect from the second season of Torchwood, which already premiered in England, but is set to air its first episode in the U.S. tonight, Jan. 26. SciFi Channel will broadcast the episode at 9 PM ET.

You’re going to also see much more of Jack’s history. Our time travel in Torchwood is different. [In] Doctor Who, the Doctor gets in a Tardis and travels. Our time travel is done through memory.

 

Ballad of a Thin Man, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • January 26, 2008

 

Last weekend, we finally caught up with I’m Not There, the brilliant Todd Haynes movie about the myths of Bob Dylan. The director intertwines the lives of six men, each symbolizing a stage of Dylan’s artistic development and public persona. They include a wide range: a young black boy, played by Marcus Carl Franklin; the protest singer, played by Christian Bale; the walking, talking enigma played by Cate Blanchett; the egomaniacal prick, played by Heath Ledger; the romantic, Ben Winshaw; and the lonesome recluse, played by Richard Gere. I don’t know if you’d like it if you aren’t a Dylan fan, but, if you are, it’s an amazing narrative.
 
On Monday, Brian Williams reported on the NBC Nightly News that the Monday of the last full week of January is known as “Blue Monday,” because it’s the single day that the most people are depressed, and has the highest suicide rate. 
 
On Tuesday, Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment.
 
I don’t mean to imply that he committed suicide. His body was found by a masseuse, with whom he had an appointment, and people planning suicide don’t usually get a massage first. As I write this, there’s not a lot of information about what caused his death. The autopsy didn’t reveal anything, nor was there a suicide note. Police found prescription drugs in the apartment, but they’d find prescription drugs in my apartment, too. There was no evidence that these drugs had been taken in anything other than the prescribed dose. 
 
He was only 28 years old, and he had a daughter, Matilda, age two. And now he’s gone.
 
We know and grieve over Heath Ledger because he was famous. We knew his face. We sat in the dark of movie theaters, and projected our own emotions into his eyes. He was young and handsome and talented, and it’s a loss for all of us.
 
Those of us who love comics felt a special kinship, because he was playing The Joker in The Dark Knight. The trailers and the early teasers indicate that he gave a brilliant performance, one that understands the complicated character created by Jerry Robinson and further sculpted by dozens of writers and artists over the past 50 years.
 

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ComicMix’s Interview With Heath Ledger

Exclusive To ComicMix Radio: Heath Ledger On Taking On The Joker

The untimely death of any celebrity leaves a lot of questions and speculation. In the wake of Heath Ledger’s passing, some are looking at his overly dark portrayal of The Joker in Warner Bros’ upcoming Dark Knight Batman film. In a ComicMix exclusive, Heath Ledger tells us just why he took on such a demanding part.

Plus:

  • NBC props are up for sale – again
  • Monsters invade Hollywood – we have proof
  • Witchblade vs. The Darkness – again
  • Marvel’s Twelve blasts out of the stores
  • Urban Monsters goes to Hollywood
  • What were the top selling comics and graphic novels in recent week? We’ve got the list!

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James Marsters Talks Torchwood and Interspecies Romance

  • News
  • January 25, 2008

In a recent, spoiler-filled (we repeat: spoiler-filled) interview with TV Guide, Buffy/Angel actor James Marsters discussed his return to TV on the Season Two premiere of Torchwood.

According to the interview, Marsters portrays a snarky, lusting Brit who quickly becomes a thorn in the side of the series’ main character, an old associate of his who ends up… Wait, doesn’t this sound familiar?

Anyways… The interview is chock-full of behind-the-scenes details about the filming of the Torchwood premiere, as well as some questionable personal revelations from Marsters himself. Unfortunately, most of those sections of the interview are impossible to post here without revealing key plot points, so you’ll have to make do with this short bit about how one of America’s favorite vampires made his way to the BBC:

I was on a concert tour in the U.K. — I broke up my band, so it was just me and my guitar — and my tour manager, Lisa, got me to watch Dr. Who. I thought it was a really well-written show and would be fun to do. So my agent called Russell T. Davies, who wrote Queer as Folk and is responsible for Dr. Who. Russell said no, but he would love for me to come on Torchwood, the spin-off. It’s a funny, subversive show like Buffy. I feel very much at home.

Marsters also sheds some light on the potential demise of a Spike spin-off series:

I don’t think it’s absolutely dead. I told Joss that I didn’t want to do the character as an old vampire, which would be really sucky. [Laughs] But I’m holding up better than I thought I would. With the right lighting, we might be able to get away with it.

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