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#SDCC: The Black Panel 2010

  • News
  • July 27, 2010

There’s something very strange when the only write-up I’ve seen on this year’s Black Panel came not from any comics websites, but from the Wall Street Journal. On the other hand, perhaps they were just reading the actual sales figures, and they noted that the best selling comic of 2009 featured a black man.

This year’s panel included, besides moderator and self-crowned Master Of The Universe Michael Davis, author Nnedi Okorafor, entertainment
attorney Darrell Miller, former Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard,
director and comics writer Reginald Hudlin, artist Denys Cowan, writer Natashia
McGough, Wu-Tang Clan’s Prodigal Sunn, and actor Bill Duke.

The WSJ certainly captured the flavor of the panel:

Davis opened the event by beckoning any reporters from conservative
media outlets to take his comically incendiary comments out of context,
including his announcement that he would not be letting white people
into the event and that white people are all better off dead. He later
scathingly lambasted anybody that violated the rules of the panel, such
as when audience members digress during the Q&A portion. Suffice it
to say, it pretty much happened most of the time anyway.

Hopefully video will be available soon.

AniMiniCon SoHo July 30-August 1

  • Uncategorized
  • July 27, 2010

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AniMiniCon SoHo is a three day-event taking place July 30-Aug 1
for local New York City area fans of anime, manga and Japanese culture. It’s
happening at a unique downtown space, the SoHo Gallery for Digital Art
in Manhattan (138 Sullivan Street, New York, NY  www.sohodigart.com) The Gallery has 16 hi-resolution 40″
computer monitors on the walls, which will show off not only anime and
manga artworks, but also photgraphic scenes from Japan that will make
you feel like you’re in a “Virtual Tokyo.”

On Friday night, (July 30) the events open
with a cosplay reception (refreshments will be served!) that will also mark the debut of the SOHO Host
Club. This group of young gentleman fans of anime and manga will be
circulating throughout the event and presiding over several program
items throughout the weekend. They will be serving tea and snacks at the Victorian, Gothic and Lolita Tea Party on Sunday afternoon (August 1)
where premium tea will be provided by Harney and Sons. You don’t need to
dress up, but if you can, please come in your best Victorian,
Steampunk, Gothic, Lolita or Japanese traditional outfits! If you have
any Asian Ball Jointed Dolls (such as Dollfies) bring them along to show
off.

On Saturday night (July 31) there is a
live musical performance of songs from anime series such as Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist and Blood Plus. As ComicMix’s
own Alexandra Honigsberg plays, corresponding scenes from the anime
will be projected onto a large digital screen, so the live music becomes
the soundtrack to the show! You’ll also be encouraged to sing and dance
along. 

AniMiniCon SoHo will also feature anime screenings
(courtesy of Funimation) as well as panel discussions with animation and
manga artists including Misako Rocks. There will also be a Dealer’s
Room, as well as organized discussions and anime/manga themed games and
demonstrations.

For more details and updates, visit
www.animinicon.com or join their Facebook group. Admission is $30 for the three-day pass (available in advance at
the website) or $12 per day at the door.  If you are interested in
participating in any of the program items (especially if you can
demonstrate Japanese traditional arts, such as kimono or origami) e-mail
animiniconsoho@gmail.com.

Terror At The San Diego Comic Con

  • News
  • July 27, 2010

mister-mystery121-1704075Just about everybody over the age of 12 who had gone to
the fabled San Diego Comic Con over the past several years has perceived the unbelievably massive overcrowding as an accident just waiting to happen. Well, this year it finally happened.

As reported here and elsewhere, last Saturday a
confrontation between two attendees ended with one being stabbed in the eye. It seems the perpetrator took exception to the guy sitting in on a panel just so he could get a seat at the next panel. Quite frankly, that’s a common occurrence at the San Diego show.

The attacker was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon. That deadly weapon was a pen, but, according to the police, the
pen was used in a deadly manner. Barring additional, heretofore unrevealed
information – like, the victim was wielding a Klingon Daqtagh – this seems like a reasonable charge. I’m sure it’ll be plea-bargained down to something like community service at a Soylent Green plant.

There’s only so much security you can provide when you squeeze an eighth of a million people, most wearing gynormous backpacks, into a confined space that restricts movement. If you’re not willing to be in line for the better panels hours and hours early, you will not get in. And there are
dozens and dozens of those; trust me, I’ve been on more than a few. Last couple years those of us who participate in panels have been hustled into “green rooms” afterwards in order to escape the crowds.

If it’s panels you’re looking for, in San Diego you’ll be lucky to attend two a day while spending the rest of your time standing in line.

Those lines exacerbate the difficulty of getting around.
This isn’t restricted to the panel rooms: signings and appearances in the main
room (p.k.a. “the dealer’s room”) or in Artists’ Alley promotes exceptionally
dangerous crowd conditions.

Doesn’t San Diego have a fire marshal’s office? If so, what the hell are they smoking? They couldn’t get away with this in most other cities; I’m reminded of the first two New York shows put on by Reed Exhibitions that were corralled by New York’s bravest.

It’s a no-win situation; the San Diego Comic Con has outgrown its facilities, and it may have outgrown manageable reality. Lucky for us comics fans, it’s been years since the San Diego show has really been about comic books anyway.

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Review: ‘The Job’

thejob3dhirzcmyk-2044283How desperate does a man get before he agrees to do the unthinkable? How low must you fall before you allow yourself to get caught up in something immoral, illegal, and just plain dangerous?

These themes are barely touched on as we encounter Bubba (Patrick Flueger), a jobless, down on his luck guy in a nameless small city in the low budget dark film [[[The Job]]]. Based on a 1998 stage play by Shem Bitterman, who went on to script and direct this adaptation, the story is a slow act of seduction.

While sitting in the coffee shop where his long-time love Joy (Taryn Manning) works as a waitress, he is befriended by a drifting salesman named Perriman (Ron Perlman), who gives him a job lead. That begins the long, torturous descent from just plain lost to lost, confused, and crossing the line between good and evil.

The film, out today on DVD from Magnolia Home Entertainment, is far from engaging despite the interesting set-up and situations. None of the characters feel real or are fleshed out in a way that makes you believe they are willing to commit the acts that punctuates the rest of the film. The oddly named Bubba lets himself be talked into killing by Joe Pantoliano, in an understated role. When he decides he can’t go through with it, despite the promise of $200,000, Perriman agrees to help for half and that’s when things stop making sense and spiral out of control.

Bitterman gives oddness in lieu of clarity and twists that make little dramatic sense. Yes, setting things up so that Bubba is forced to do what he couldn’t bring himself to do is interesting but then the payoff goes from barely believable to illogical and badly constructed. Coupled with mediocre acting and lightly sketched characters, the entire movie becomes a 99 minute dreary experience.

The Alternate Ending and perfunctory Making Of featurette round out the DVD. Be warned, just watching this from beginning to end is job enough.

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Review: ‘Sgt. Bilko: The Phil Silvers Show’ Season One

philsilvers-s1-dvd-3d-s1-6312504Phil Silvers perfected his fast-talking, scheming promoter character during his years on the vaudeville circuit and polished it in a variety of feature films so that by the time he debuted on his own television series, it was pitch perfect. His Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko became a template for comedy roles imitated by others across the pop culture spectrum. For example, the Baby Boomers grew up with the Bilko persona imprinted on Hanna-Barbera’s Top Cat. Silvers rarely varied from the character, using it to good effect in subsequent films and even the Broadway play[[[ A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum]]].

The series was originally called [[[You’ll Never Get Rich]]] but in less than two months after its September 20, 1955 premiere, it was renamed [[[The Phil Silvers Show]]] and was subsequently syndicated as [[[Sgt. Bilko]]]. It won the Emmy Award for best comedy three seasons running with Silvers winning once as best actor. Series creator Nat Hiken was a recognized comedy writer, now a series creator and followed with [[[Car 54, Where Are You?]]] and [[[McHale’s Navy]]]. Such was the show’s fame and success; it was among the first situation comedies to run on the first incarnation of Comedy Central.

To see what the fuss is all about, you can now own the first season, releasing tomorrow as Sgt. Bilko: The Phil Silvers Show, from Paramount Home Entertainment. There are 34 episodes on five discs along with just a handful of extras.

What you get is Sgt. Bilko, head of the motor pool at sleepy Camp Baxter in Roseville, Kansas. He and his platoon of career soldiers never had money and always sought a way to get ahead – one scheme after another from card games to horse racing. Invariably, it meant out thinking the camp commander, Col. John T. Hall (Paul Ford) or fellow sergeants. Aiding him were his corporals Rocco Barbella (Harvey Lembeck) and Steve Henshaw (Allan Melvin). Throughout the season, characters recur such as his occasional romantic foil Sgt. Joan Hogan (Elisabeth Fraser), but all were in support of Bilko.

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#SDCC: Overheard, Part 2

  • News
  • July 26, 2010

The concept that a comic book convention, which should be a wonderful
introduction for kids to the dazzling and varied world of comics
collecting–where a kid can meet and greet the creators he’s always
admired and ask questions and feel that much closer to the (to him)
magical process that brings super-hero adventures to him every month,
and perhaps even fantasize about a time when he’ll be on the other side
of that table, signing autographs or drawing sketches for kids that are
the age that he is right then–the concept that such a convention should
ever become a dangerous place, where young fans risk life and limb and
might be trampled by alleged “adults” trying to get a hundred copies of
the latest “hot” comic book signed so that they can tack on a few more
bucks to the selling price–

It is intolerable.

Intolerable.

And we should not suffer it to continue.

—Peter David, writing not about the stabbing in 2010, but about the Great Eastern Convention near-riot in 1993.

“Thanks, Comic Con. Show the Machete trailer after the stabbing. Very classy.” —Cole Abaius

“It was FREE, and I wanted it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire LIFE.” –overheard by Scott McCloud in the last minutes of the con

“I’m sorry I was late. I’m rooming with six slave Leias and they
needed help with their bikinis.” –Bellechere, the Avatar Lady Death
model (Hat tip: Rich Johnston)

And the photo was brought to us by the ironically named FunnyOrDie.com.

Monday Mix-Up: The Casting Announcement Marvel Didn’t Make at #SDCC

  • News
  • July 26, 2010

They brought everybody else out this weekend, but there’s still one more role they haven’t announced yet… and in your heart, you know it’s right.

Make this happen, Joss Whedon. If you must, you can cast Ron Glass as his father.

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#SDCC: ‘Avengers’ cast together for the first time

  • News
  • July 25, 2010

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Newly-installed Avengers director Joss Whedon took the stage at San Diego Comic-Con to make the much-applauded formal announcement of who will be playing Marvel’s mightiest heroes. 

Returning Iron Man 2 stars Robert Downey, Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, and Clark Gregg, will be reprising their roles as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Nick Fury, Black Widow, and Agent Phil Coulson respectively, alongside Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America (in The Avengers and Captain America: The First Avenger both), Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and the newly cast Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk.

It’s certainly an accomplished cast, despite the apparent lack of the Wasp, and the star power coming off Bleeding Cool‘s photo is almost tangible. 

“I’ve had a dream all my life, and it was not this good,” Whedon said at the panel. “This cast is more than I could ever dream of working with, and I am going to blow it.”

(Not pictured: Nathan Fillion as Ant-Man. It’s not happening. Get over it.)

#SDCC: Stabbing in Hall H– and how the studios and convention can ratchet down the tension

  • Uncategorized
  • July 25, 2010

sdcc-stabbing-arrest-9598142And I was so proud of us earlier at the convention.

We laughed hate-mongering yahoos Fred Phelps and his family off the stage.

But save a seat for someone in Hall H, and it’s grounds for being stabbed with a pen.

Which is what happened yesterday afternoon. When it was all over, one man was carried out on a stretcher and another was led off in handcuffs and a bloody shirt.

USA Today quoted San Diego Police Sgt. Gary Mondesir saying, “Two
males got into a dispute and one male stabbed the other male with a pen
around the eye socket. Paramedics arrived almost immediately and took
the victim to the University of California/San Diego hospital. The
suspect was taken away.

“We had officers inside the convention center and
they were there relatively quickly, and citizens had actually detained
the suspect,” said Mondesir.

Flashback: I was there twenty years ago when Rob Liefeld was throwing gold copies of Youngblood #1 into the crowd at a New York convention at the Javits center and nearly sparked a riot. The Javits didn’t have another comic convention there for almost a decade.

And now we actually have someone getting arrested for assault while somebody else is dragged off to the hospital.

So for all of you who are saying “Hoocoodaknown?” I suggest you go back to reading Johnny DC and Marvel Adventures. The grown-up comics are too much for you.

This situation is intolerable. What’s more, this can change and needs to, right away. Here’s how:

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#SDCC: The 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International Masquerade – UPDATED

  • News
  • July 25, 2010

The 36th annual Comic-Con Masquerade, sponsored by HBO’s True Blood, happened last night with 36 entries and 126 performers scheduled to entertain and awe thousands of convention goers. The Masquerade has been a runway for all the best costumes the Con has to offer. 

To participate in the contest, the costumes must be original, and participants are required to send photos of themselves creating their costumes. Costumes that have been entered in previous SDCC Masquerades or have won in previous contests are not allowed– which means that means audiences get something new to be dazzled by every year.

Since there is no theme, costumes can depict characters from movies, comics, video games, anime… anything the creator wishes. There’s no telling what to expect, which is part of what makes the Masquerade so exciting. Coordinator Martin Jaquish and other staffers look forward to the contest every year, and are eager to see what people can come up with.

This year, entries included “12 Signs of the Zodiac”, Mothra girls, and a mashup between the hit show Glee and Marvel’s X-Men, titled Mutant Directions.

We’ll have more photos and video up over the next few days as decent copies become available, along with the final results of the judging.

Updated 9:45 7/25: Videos from the Masquerade are slowly being posted online. Here are the “Best in Show” winners, the Vegas Villains.

Be sure to check out these performances, too. There were some great sketches this year!

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