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Saturday Morning Cartoons: ‘The Adventures of Fatman’

  • News
  • August 21, 2010

In 1997, CBS television had the brilliant idea to give pop-music satirist “Weird Al” Yankovic his own Saturday Morning kids show, under the one stipulation…that it be educational.  Despite that anchor, Al managed to make one of the most endearing and fun kids shows since Pee Wee’s Playhouse.  In fact, the show was often cited as the next-best-thing to the revered show….up until the following year, when CBS canceled its entire Saturday Morning line up.  They even went as far as to strip cartoons from the programming!  Of course, The Weird Al Show was caught in the crossfire and hit the chopping block as well.

So, what does a live-action TV show have to do with the Saturday Morning Cartoons segment here at ComicMix?  Well, not ALL the content of the episodes were educational… Al managed to slip in some awesome sketches, music and…of course, cartoons!  A big animation fan, Yankovic had stop motion animation, computer graphics and traditional animation all just in the opening theme song!  In addition, there was also the occasional episode of “Fatman”, the show’s simple-minded superhero.  Al and his sidekick, Harvey the Wonder Hamster (voiced by Ren & Stimpy and Futurama star Billy West) would thwart the evil machinations of villains such as “The Slaw”.  Witness the first episode of the Pork Knight!

And, one of my favorite episodes (guaranteed to be full of at least a few references that went over the kiddies’ heads) “Fatman Vs The Eggman”

Bonus:  The awesome opening theme song animation

Chicago Comic Con: A Tale of Two Cons (Part One)

  • News
  • August 21, 2010

We, the true believers all have that “home show”. That convention we never miss because it’s in our backyard. We treasure the memories we build there. And for those of us who aspire to become creators (like me and my Unshaven Comics cohorts) the “home show” is also where we first took the plunge and moved to the other side of the aisle to become creators, not just conventioneers. For me, that home show has been the Chicago Comic Con. I, of course, knew it as “Wizard World Chicago” when I first walked in the doors a newly christened comic fan in 1999. Ever since, that show has been a stalwart in my calender. I’ve not missed it, now, for 11 years in a row. Suffice to say, I’ve had a ton of great memories over the years. From catching the first glimpse of The Dark Knight, sitting mere feet away from Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, and David Goyer… to sitting in a jam packed ballroom, sharing a laugh over the secrets of Wonder Woman #219… to that first year I had to give up attending Wizard School panels, in order to sell my first graphic novel.

As the years have passed, my Unshaven family and I have noticed a rising trend. What started as just ribs and pokes from snottier fans who’d long proclaimed Wizard to be unhip and “mainstream”, changed to a general malaise from many of the fans we stood shoulder to shoulder with in lines for huge attractions like Kevin Smith Q and A’s to the aforementioned Dark Knight sneak preview. It seemed many Windy City con goers where feeling a slow and steady decline in attendance, in spirits, and most importantly in quality. As I touched on it in a previous article… it would seem that at last year’s Chicago Comic Con, a keystone had crumbled. Where once mighty booths manned by the biggest publishers stood greeting con-goers as they entered the center, were now gone, and replaced with questionable replacements. In 2009, where DC’s mighty banners once hung, and the DC Direct glass where my nose was pressed with palpable envy stood a Tonner Doll booth… where porcelain cherubic faced Harry Potters and Twilight Edwards now glared at me in monotone smiles. Where the Mighty Marvel erected it’s booth where cathartic creators sat and signed piles of books now sat a blacklight-rave music pumping-psuedo ninja weapon booth, manned by people who I can assure you couldn’t tell the difference between Deadpool and Deadshot. Thus, today it was with fearful steps that I entered that large hall once more… and hours later, I sit here, truly sad to type these words: My home show is a sorry shadow of it’s former self. (more…)

The Point Radio: Speaking With Mr Show

  • Uncategorized
  • August 20, 2010

Writer, actor, producer, director – it all fits BOB ODENKIRK. From MR SHOW to BREAKING BAD and now with a new project, there’s a lot to cover here on a special off beat ‘cast today!

And be sure to stay on The Point via iTunes - ComicMix, RSS, MyPodcast.Comor Podbean!

Follow us now on and !

Don’t forget that you can now enjoy THE POINT 24 hours a Day – 7 Days a week!. Updates on all parts of pop culture, special programming by some of your favorite personalities and the biggest variety of contemporary music on the net – plus there is a great round of new programs on the air including classic radio each night at 12mid (Eastern) on RETRO RADIO COMICMIX’s Mark Wheatley hitting the FREQUENCY every Saturday at 9pm and even the Editor-In-Chief of COMICMIX, Mike Gold, with his daily WEIRD SCENES and two full hours of insanity every Sunday (7pm ET) with WEIRD SOUNDS!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVE FOR FREE or go to GetThePointRadio for more including a connection for mobile phones including iPhone & Blackberrys.

 

(more…)

Review: ‘Networked: Carabella on the Run’

Networked: Carabella on the Run

By Gerard Jones & Mark Badger
134 pages, NBM Publishing, $12.99

The issue of privacy in the digital age is an ongoing dialogue as some people feel too much personal information is available to anyone skilled at cyber research while others prefer sharing every aspect of their lives. For several generations, the specter of George Orwell’s Big Brother has loomed large over the evolving technology field, occasionally raising the concern that the government will use this data in ways to which we would object – if we knew.

Privacy Activism is a non-profit company designed to make people aware and give them knowledge and tools to determine how much they want to share or to protect. To educate the younger masses, they created Carabella, a hip, blue-skinned college-aged woman and have used her in several outreach programs. For her third appearance, she has been turned over to master graphic novelists, Gerard Jones and Mark Badger, for Networked: [[[Carabella on the Run]]].

Given the graphic novel’s agenda, one can forgive some of the heavy-handedness of the storytelling and the over used cliché of a government conspiracy to use the personal data to control the population. Carabella is an odd girl as her college friends get to know her. There are too many things that seem unfamiliar to her and she has trouble navigating the basic social conventions.

When she starts receiving texts and e-mails from students interested in getting to know her, she freaks out, wondering how they discovered her contact info. In time, she finally meets engineering student Nick Shumer and falls for him. As she begins to let down her guard, he begins acting oddly, which makes sense since he recovered a bit of her personal technology that he reverse engineers for his own purposes.

The tech, essentially the protomatter of the story, enables him to perfect the most technologically sophisticated walking shoes and he loses sight of things as he is seduced with fame and fortune. In time, though, Carabella realizes what he has done and finally reveals her secrets that propel the story in an entirely different direction, addressing the core privacy issues.

The first half is more engaging as the characters act like real people and the world of college feels right for the theme. The science fiction second half is lots of action and deering-do but also feels more predictable and less compelling. Jones does a nice job with Carabella’s personality while Nick’s character seems to be changing scene by scene.

Badger’s art flows nicely from scene to scene and the work has a fresh feel, although some of his color choices struck me as odd given the role color plays in the second half. Some of the shading to the faces isn’t as successful as one would hope.

There are some strong messages here and plenty of food for thought. Presenting this information embedded within an entertaining graphic novel was a great approach. The agency gets credit for providing chapters online along with a guide for teachers to use, to drill home the messages in the classroom.

With luck, we’ll be seeing Carabella again.

Knock me over with a feather: ‘Star Wars’ in Blu-Ray in 2011

  • News
  • August 20, 2010

Wow. Who could have foreseen that George Lucas, who has skillfully exploited every single new video format to come along in the past 33 years for maximum financial gain, would release Star Wars on Blu-Ray sometime in 2011 with even more clips that we never saw before? And only as a box set for all six, so you can’t cherry pick your favorites?

Impress me, George. Put both editions of the original trilogy on there.

Angel Returns to Dark Horse in Time for New Season

  • News
  • August 20, 2010

Angel has been revealed to be the Big Bad in the latter issues of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight so it makes perfect sense for the comic book adventures of the vampire with a soul to shift from IDW back to Dark Horse.

The story leaked inadvertently yesterday and now Dark Horse has sent out a formal announcement:

August 19, 2010, MILWAUKIE, OR—Dark Horse Comics is thrilled to announce that Joss Whedon’s Angel will return to the Dark Horse stable in 2011. Dark Horse’s Angel will bring the beloved characters from Whedon’s longest-running shows under one roof, allowing for new and exciting explorations of the Buffyverse featuring favorites from the casts of both series.

“I’ve always regretted letting Angel go in the first place,” Dark Horse senior managing editor Scott Allie said. “So we’re really excited about getting him back, as well as all his supporting cast. It’s necessary for how Joss wants to handle season nine, details of which will start spilling out in the months to come. Right now, we’ve got to wrap up season eight, and IDW still has a good long run of books before season nine starts.”

IDW Publishing confirmed today that it will launch the company’s final Angel story arc in November. This closing six-issue arc will serve as a bridge to Dark Horse Comics, which will pick up the series in late 2011. Under the direction of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel creator Joss Whedon, all parties are working together for as seamless a transition as possible. The companies have been coordinating story lines in both Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight and IDW’s Angel, creating a greater sense of cohesion and cooperation to ensure that this transition is true to both ongoing story lines and to the faithful fans of both series.

Principal Photography Begins on ‘Losers Take All’

  • News
  • August 19, 2010

Losers Take All has begun principal photography under the direction of Alex Steyermark (Prey for Rock & Roll). The small feature film will star Kyle Gallner (A Nightmare On Elm Street), Allison Scagliotti (Warehouse 13) and Tania Raymonde (Lost).  The picture began production earlier this week in and around Memphis, Tennessee.  The cast also includes Alexia Rasmussen (Listen to Your Heart), Aaron Himelstein (Joan of Arcadia), Billy Kay (Yelling to the Sky), Adam Herschman (Soul Men), and newcomer Peter Brensinger.   

The film is set in the world of mid-1980’s American independent rock music, follows a fictional punk/pop band “The Fingers” as they stumble, stagger and strum their way in what everyone thinks is the opposite direction of success–commercial or otherwise.  But they are in the right place at the right time and the public is eager to embrace the D.I.Y. sounds of the underground, whether those in the underground-“The Fingers” included-like it or not. It’s a raucous love letter to an era when for most bands, life meant touring around the country in a cramped van, sleeping on the floors of strangers, selling your records after each show, and where fans were earned through powerful live shows at small clubs, reviews in ‘zines, and do-it-yourself promotions.  

Top-Forty musician Marshall Crenshaw, who co-penned the Golden Globe and Grammy nominated title track to the hit comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, will work with the actors to put together a band whose sound recalls the Indie/Punk/D.I.Y. days of 1980’s college radio.  This past winter, he and Memphis’ own Scott Bomar produced and recorded original songs for the film at Bomar’s Electrophonic Recording with local Memphis musicians.   

Losers Take All was written by Andrew Pope and Winn Coslick, from a story by Roger Rawlings and Ed Bradin. The film will be produced by Mike S. Ryan (Junebug), Andrew Pope and Winn Coslick. The Executive Producers are Andrew Meyer (The Breakfast Club) and Roger Rawlings. 

Ray Bradbury, We Hardly Know Thee

  • Uncategorized
  • August 19, 2010

It’s very disconcerting when one of your heroes gets old and cranky and weird. Sadly, this happened to me last week, with respect to one
of America’s greatest living authors,Ray Bradbury.

We knew something was up with the author of such important and even vital classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and Dandelion Wine back when he called President Clinton a shithead… but, hey, Clinton was President and calling the President a shithead is a great, time-honored tradition. He subsequently wasn’t happy about Michael Moore’s movie Fahrenheit 9/11, thinking
Moore was somehow piggybacking upon the fame of his stunning novel by conflating the imagery of his story of a repressed future with repression of the then-present.

However, oddly, this past week Ray attacked President Obama for his comments about freedom of religion.

No, Bradbury didn’t say that Obama should be anti-Muslim, or, conversely, that Obama should have specifically backed building the Islamic cultural center at the site for a long-abandoned Burlington Coat Factory. Ray said “He (Obama) should be announcing that we should go back to the moon. We
should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever.”

I’m still trying to find his segue. I don’t get the connection between the two. Should all future houses of worship be built in space? I don’t know, although maybe NASA should consider the concept as a future source of funding.

Attacking Ray is not going to make me any friends, particularly on the occasion of his 90th birthday. I am proud to have known him. I shared a table with Ray for an hour at the San Diego Comic Con a while ago, I was with him at the debut of his play Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, and we both indulged in a friendship with the late great Julius Schwartz. I wouldn’t trade a moment of those experiences, nor would I abandon the soul-filling wonderment I received from his writing. I will admit to being more experienced than Bradbury when it comes to being cranky and weird.

Bradbury also said we have too many cell phones and too many Internets (sic), and we have to get rid of them. He’s also opposed to electronic books. Sorry, Ray. It’s the 21st Century. Back after World War II there were a whole lot of authors who stigmatized the “cheap” paperback novels that were starting to proliferate. You know, the ones that brought science fiction
writers to a mass audience. You know, writers like Ray Bradbury.

He might not like the term science fiction – I don’t either – but Ray Bradbury was a damned important visionary. Turning your back on the future is one thing, but turning your back on the present is just sad.

Complete ‘Batman Beyond’ Box Set Details Announced

  • News
  • August 18, 2010

We’ve known this was coming for several weeks now, but Warner Home Video has finally announced the details for this product which should be appearing on most of your letters to Santa Claus.Here’s the press release:

BURBANK, CA (August 18, 2010) – Warner Bros. Animation’s breakthrough series Batman Beyond comes to DVD for the first time in its entirety.  Featuring DC Comics’ iconic hero, Batman, Batman Beyond: The Complete Series presents nearly 20 hours of animated action spread over 52 episodes, as well as all-new bonus featurettes and a 24-page, 8”x 12” collectible booklet. Batman Beyond: The Complete Series will be distributed by Warner Home Video on November 23, 2010 as a nine-disc limited edition DVD set for $99.98 (SRP).

Batman Beyond: The Complete Series centers on Terry McGinnis, an ordinary teenager … until his father is mysteriously murdered. Suspecting foul play at his father’s company, Wayne/Powers Corporation, Terry meets Bruce Wayne and learns of a secret identity hidden for decades. Now too old to don the cape and cowl as Batman, Wayne refuses to help – so Terry does what any brash young kid would do: steal the Bat-suit and take matters into his own hands! Vowing to avenge his father’s death, Terry dons the high-tech suit tricked out with jetpacks, a supersensitive microphone and even camouflage capabilities in search of his father’s assassin. It’s 52 action-packed episodes following the adventures of the partnership between an ex-crimefighter and his apprentice, starring Will Friedle (Boy Meets World) as Terry McGinnis and, reprising his seminal role, Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series) as Bruce Wayne.

Casting throughout the series’ 52 episodes featured award winners from feature films, primetime television and the Broadway stage – from Paul Winfield, Stockard Channing and Seth Green to William H. Macy, Wayne Brady and Teri Garr – not to mention George Lazenby (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), Dan Castellaneta (The Simpsons), Jodi Benson (The Little Mermaid), George Takei (Star Trek) and Henry Rollins (the front man for the rock band, Black Flag). (more…)

Ray Bradbury will be turning 90 on Sunday…

  • News
  • August 18, 2010

…which, I suppose, is why some people made a video saluting him.

(DEAR GOD NO NOT SAFE FOR WORK)

What’s amazing is that I know a bunch of women who have expressed similar sentiments about the man’s writing. Now if only other comic book writers got the same treatment…

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