Category: News

One More Day Too Many, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • January 7, 2008
Damn. They blew it.
 
Pulling off those universe-shattering “everything you knew yesterday will be wrong tomorrow” budget-busting bookshelf-breaking crossovers is a bitch. Few of them prove to be worth anybody’s effort, most of them are contradicted within a few weeks of their conclusion, and there have been way, way too many such “events” for any of them to be actual events. 
 
Marvel’s Civil War was different. For one thing, it was actually about something – it took on issues and concerns that were metaphors for what has been going on in the so-called real world. For another, it had at least three really, really interesting story-threads: the devolution of Tony Stark’s humanity, the death of Steve Rogers (as opposed to the death of Captain America, which didn’t happen), and the outing of Spider-Man and the resultant impact it had on Peter Parker, his career and his family.
 
I was left with a degree of personal involvement that had been much greater than previously. Marvel had instituted real change, and while we all know change is a constant and that at some point some of it would be contradicted eventually – somebody, at some point in the future, will probably resurrect Steve Rogers, although I hope not – the “event” ended with my being more curious about what would follow than any other such mega-crossover. Silly me.
 
O.K. Now we get to the spoilers, so if you haven’t read the last few Spiders-Man, and you haven’t seen any of the covers or house ads, and you haven’t listened to the hubbub at your friendly neighborhood comics shop, and you’d temporarily gone deaf and blind after seeing Alvin and the Chipmunks, you might want to stop right here. Or you can view this as a public service. And now, back to our regularly scheduled rant.
 

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Caucus for ComicMix Columnists

  • News
  • January 6, 2008

Well, about 19% of eligible voters in the first atypically-populated state with way too much power to decide the country’s fate have spoken, Presidential campaign-wise, and rendered moot at least three candidates on the Democratic side, who are no longer Biden their time as they Dodd-er back to Washington with Gravel-y voices.  Thank goodness Kucinich didn’t drop out yet, his name is awfully hard to pun.  Meanwhile, a couple of our weekly ComicMix columnists have become a bit political of late; with the campaign season being so long there’s almost sure to be more where that came from.  Here’s what we’ve given you this past week:

Say, did you know there was also a Republican caucus in Wyoming?  How come Iowa and New Hampshire get all the press?  (Just ’cause Wyoming Democrats caucus separately, two months from now?) If I were Cheyenne I would sue.

McFarlane, Sim, Kirkman, and Pigs? Oh my!

  • News
  • January 6, 2008

Less than a week into the New Year and our monitor screen is already covered in sticky notes. Stand by for Operation Clean Up!

If you are one of the fans who want a look at its eagerly anticipated Todd McFarlane Productions’ The Simpsons Series 2 Action Figure Assortment then simply click here. As we told you, it isn’t just a few jpegs. The site has complete details on the figures, including their specifications and a number of high-quality, full-color photographs of the finished pieces, as well as photos of the packaging. The site also includes QuickTime VR movies of the figures and handy list of available retailers.

Everybody seems to be weighing in on Dave Sim’s new comic book project, Glamourpuss. You can see previews here. Keep in mind, it’s about a light year and a half away from Cerebus, Dave describes it as a parody of the fashion industry plus an homage to the classic “soap opera” comics strips of the 50s, like On Stage. It’s set to debut in April. 

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Resident Dragon Extinction, by Ric Meyers

  • News
  • January 6, 2008
Let us now celebrate one of the greatest boons to entertainment in the entire history of film. It is seemingly small and insignificant – just a tiny speck amongst many others – but with a mere touch it can turn dreadful wastes of time into tolerable, even enjoyable, enhancements to one’s well-being. 
 
It is, of course, the fast forward button on your DVD remote, and, thanks to this brilliant advance in viewing pleasure, productions which were execrable in the cinema are made amusing at the very least. And, not only will it bridge the mind-numbing gaps between a mediocre film’s decent scenes, but it does so at a wide range of speeds.
 
You can watch at double-time, where, if your eye reflexes are honed by Wii or PS2/3, you can still catch the bulk of any subtitles (which is lucky for the likes of me and fellow kung-fu film fans). The FF button has, in fact, saved my emotional life many times, and it certainly was a godsend during this week’s DVD viewing – which, if truth be told, rarely got below 16X.
 
Of course I watched the special features at regular speed. That’s the least I could do, considering my ComicMix responsibilities. Besides, the extras are almost always interesting, whether they feature an underdog’s hopes or the stereotypically overstated prattle of seasoned hackmeisters. Both were on display in abundance this week.
 

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Happy 35th birthday, Schoolhouse Rock!

  • News
  • January 6, 2008

my-hero-zero-2074741On a Saturday in 1973 at about 8:56 in the morning, right after Super Friends on ABC, kids were introduced to a new hero, Zero.

This was the first appearance of Multiplication Rock, brought to you by Nabisco ("You’ll find quality in our corner"). It was the beginning of Schoolhouse Rock, which taught millions of kids across the country multiplication, grammar, history, science, and finances.

So let’s all take a few minutes and watch the video for the first song written for the project, and give thanks for all those lessons learned– it’s okay to sing along, you know how it goes:

A Deeper Origin of the Asian Horror-Film Phenomenon, by Michael H. Price

  • News
  • January 6, 2008
Blame it on Bud Pollard, for want of a more readily identifiable scapegoat: Hollywood’s prevailing obsession with remaking scary movies from Japan seems to have caught fire with Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (1998), which led to Gore Verbinski’s The Ring in 2002, with sequels and imitations from either side of the planet.
 
Old-time hack filmmaker and Directors Guild co-founder Pollard (1886-1952) helped to seed the movement back during 1932–1933, though, when a domestically un-releasable flop of his called The Horror – involving an Eastern curse placed upon a Western thief – became a well-received attraction when exported to Japan.
 
Ignored by the Depression-era American critics and seldom shown in the U.S., The Horror garnered thoughtful, if dumbfounded, coverage in its day from Japan’s influential Kinema Junpo magazine. As translated from the archaic pre-war Japanese grammar and syntax, the Kinema Junpo review finds the critic-of-record as fascinated with the rambling, surrealistic presentation as he appears flabbergasted by the film’s refusal to follow a coherent narrative arc.
 
Leslie T. King – who had played the Mad Hatter in Pollard’s similarly odd 1931 Alice in Wonderland – serves The Horror as a traveler who steals a sacred idol, only to find himself besieged by weird apparitions and a disfiguring transformation. Pollard re-edited The Horror during the 1940s to convey a temperance lecture, re-titling the film as John the Drunkard and explaining the ordeal as a nightmare brought on by an alcoholic stupor. Where The Horror had gone largely unreleased in America as a theatrical attraction, its preachy condensation played long and widely in church-and-school bookings.

 

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Disney World Hates Kids!

  • News
  • January 5, 2008

According to the Associated Press, if you go down to Walt Disney World and want to cop a meal at Victoria and Albert’s, the five-diamond rated restaurant in the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, you better leave your pre-tens at the hotel. They are not welcome. Or tolerated.

The restaurant manager said that banning young children makes for a better dining experience for adults. Probably so; in fact, I’ll bet banning kiddies from Walt Disney World would make for a better experience for adults. Shorten the lines, too, although they’d have to keep those "you must be THIS tall" signs.

Having never been to Victoria and Albert’s, I don’t know if they have topless dancers in the lounge.

 

X-Men, Superman Lose Heavy Talent!

  • News
  • January 5, 2008

What could be more Apple Pie America than an eighteen wheel big rig flying down the highway? Toss in a vampire apocalypse and you’ve got Arcana studio’s American Wasteland – ComicMix Radio takes you behind the wheel of this great indy horror comic.

Plus:

• Robert Kirkman bails on Ultimate X-Men

• Bryan Singer bails on Superman

• Lost Girls goes European

• 25 films chosen to outlast all of mankind

Press The Button and we’ll let you blow the horn on the big truck!



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From England, With Postage

  • News
  • January 5, 2008

 44324854_bond_stamps_416-1318608

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of spy-turned-writer Ian Fleming, this Tuesday the British post office will be issuing a half-dozen "extra-long" stamps featuring reproductions of various James Bond books.

Royal Mail will be issuing other stamps honoring popular culture throughout the year, including a set commemorating the Hammer horror movies this summer.

Can Judge Dredd be far behind? More important, can Royal Mail cough up Brian Bolland’s cover rate?

 

Leader of the Pack, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • January 5, 2008

 As I start this column, the Iowa caucuses have been going on for less than half an hour. The 24-hour news channels, however, have been covering them, intensely, all day. The early returns aren’t in, but, since I don’t expect to finish this until the totals are final, we can keep talking.

 
Every four years, we go through primary season. This year, with neither party having an incumbent who can run for office, nor a vice-president who wishes to run, there is an especially large field. The network anchors assure me that, by next Wednesday, the field will have narrowed considerably as the trailing candidates drop out.
 
This is important stuff. We’re at the end days of what I hope will prove to be the worst presidency ever (as in “we will not ever elect anyone worse”). We have a huge deficit and trade imbalance, a tattered reputation among other countries, and people are dying in a war we didn’t have to start. 
 
Unfortunately, if you watch the American news, you wouldn’t know this. You would think it’s all a horse race, a matter of who wins and who loses. Some say the Democratic choice is between Obama and Clinton, ignoring the fact that John Edwards seems to be getting more support than at least one of those people. On the Republican side, they seem to be willing to include John McCain in the battle along with top vote-getters Huckabee and Romney, but that might not last past Tuesday.

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