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Transformer Title Fights: Bumblebee!

  • News
  • June 18, 2009


Transformers… more than meets the eye. This, we know. But what happens when the mighty all-spark malfunctions and sends the Michael Bay Monstrosities to wage war against the Autobots and Decepticons of our shared youth? We’ve got a few battles in our back pocket ComicMixers… let’s let ’em duke it out, shall we?

Round One: Plucky Bug or Caring Camaro?

Next to Optimus, he’s the fan favorite who always wants to be your buddy. Touted as the recon vehicle of the G1 series, Bumblebee took form as the lovable VW Bug. And while yes, he was the “little brother bot” to most of the other ARK crew-members… Don’t shortchange his abilities in battle. Because of his smaller stature, Bumblebee uses fuel 1.8 times more effectively than his Autobot brethren. Suffice to say the gas guzzling Michael Bay Bot would not be able to boast. And with his trusty sidearm laser blaster… he’s got some firepower to back his sharp tongue!

Who’d want to be a compact anyways? Some twenty years later, young Bumblebee gets a bit of an upgrade for his movie version… taking form as a new (and still impossible to get in the dealer) Chevy Camaro. But what about a quick wit? As you recall, the lad is mostly mute, as he was “damaged” during battle. Of course this time around, Bumblebee will be repaired! Voiced by ComicMix‘s own Amazing Mark Ryan (writer of the amazing series The Pilgrim), who will hopefully add the spunk to the character so missed in Michael Bay’s first outing. The movie incarnation of the ‘Bee comes to the party with a powerful “combat mode” that the G1 ‘Bee won’t see coming. So, let’s open the gates and let ’em duke it out!

So… who takes the crown in the yellow metal throw-down? Generation One’s Spunky Chunky Clunker, or Shia LeBeouf’s LeBaby? Only you, the cosmically-conscious Comic Mix commenters can conclude! Now cast your votes!

… And don’t forget to vote in the previous round, for your favorite Vocoder-voiced-villain Soundwave!

Alan Kistler & friends win NYC Audience Award at 48 Hour Film Festival

  • Uncategorized
  • June 17, 2009

From ComicMix contributor and all-around mensch Alan Kistler:

I do the 48 Hour Film Festival where you’re given a genre, character name, character
profession, prop, and a line of dialogue and have 48 hours to script it, film it, edit it and turn it in. It’s an international competition and this year we won the NYC Audience Award, which is pretty great.

Last year I was cast at the last minute after I helped with a read-through and they liked my performance. This year I appeared briefly and got to co-write it (also got to direct one scene, which was fun cuz I miss that).

This year, everyone was told to use a character named Ben Grimes who would be a “professional organizer”. The prop was to be a set of keys and the line of dialogue was “You’re not going to believe what I just heard.” The genre my group picked out of a hat was “Fantasy.”

Here’s the film. It’s a bit cropped here, so if you want to see it full-screen, go here.

Transformer Title Fights: Soundwave!

  • News
  • June 17, 2009

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Transformers… more than meets the eye. This, we know. But what happens when the mighty all-spark malfunctions and sends the Michael Bay Monstrosities to wage war against the Autobots and Decepticons of our shared youth? We’ve got a few battles in our back pocket ComicMixers… let’s let em duke it out, shall we?

Round One: Satellite Scoundrel or Baneful Boombox?

We know him collectively as Soundwave. Always loyal. Always awesome. As the Decepticon Comununications Officer, he’s known as the vocoder-voiced master of sonics. Whether he’s deploying his evil tapes-in-diguise (Ravage, Laserbeak, Ratbat, Rumble, just to name a few…) or spying on unsuspecting Autobots in his tape-deck form, he’s always the evil bot in-the-know. A warrior thru and thru, Soundwave is never one to shy away from a fight. And with his shoulder mounted blaster, he’s packing enough punch by himself to lay waste without need for calling in backup. But let’s say he wants to bring a few friends to the party? Well then, Soundwave is the one-man band. His battalion of tape sized Decepticons can take to the skies, or shake the ground. They can hide in plain site, or join their Blue Boss for any fracas that he may take apart in.

Fans clamored that Soundwave didn’t make it into Bay’s movie in the first go-round. Deciding that he’d actually listen to the fans, Michael Bay made sure Soundwave would make it into Transformers: Rise of the Fallen. Given that Bay thought the “size-altering” Transformers of the cartoon was “too detached from reality” (So you can’t buy that they can’t alter their size Michael, but you’ve no problem with high school kids being able to outrun an alien overlord who fought Optimus Prime to a standstill? Just wondering.) Soundwave would be given a new form for the movie. Taking shape as a satellite, Soundwave hovers in Earth’s orbit… perhaps to jam communications? Maybe he’ll be influential in sending more Decepticons down to Earth to free his master Megatron? We’ll have to catch the flick to find out, but in the mean time… we might as well ring the bell!

Who would win in a battle to the end? Would it be the blue-hued tape-deck of doom (with small battalion of smaller-still tapes-of-doom)? Or would it be the Bay-born Satellite of Spite? Only you, the cosmically-conscious ComicMix commenters can conclude! Now cast your votes!

‘GrimJack: The Manx Cat’ #1 available from IDW Publishing this August

  • Uncategorized
  • June 16, 2009

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We might as well make it official:

IDW Publishing is pleased to announce the
upcoming launch of the first series of ComicMix.com properties,
GrimJack: The Manx Cat. For the first time in print, fans can now enjoy
the adventures of GrimJack in 26 full color pages published straight
from the online comic. Writer John Ostrander and artist Timothy
Truman skillfully return to the grim and gritty interdimensional land of
Cynosure, in which gun-for-hire GrimJack holds court in the fabled
Munden’s Bar.

“We’re excited to be bring some of the best ComicMix properties to
real-world books, and GrimJack is a great way to start,” said Greg
Goldstein, chief operating officer of IDW. “The new books are a great
new way to enjoy ComicMix fans to enjoy their favorite comics, and
expose the properties to new fans.”

GrimJack debuted in the mid-80s and rapidly became one of First
Comics’ best-selling titles. Created by Ostrander and Truman, the
series was revived in 2005 for the graphic novel Killer Instinct,
published by IDW, which is also home to the trade paperback reprints of the First Comics’ material.

“It’s sort of a homecoming for us,” GrimJack and ComicMix
editor-in-chief Mike Gold notes. “We’ve had a long and productive
relationship with IDW – absolutely the best I’ve had in my career.
There’s no better choice to restart at the place we took off initially,
with a brand-new GrimJack mini-series.”

GrimJack: The Manx Cat #1 will be available in stores in August. Diamond order code JUN09 0951

About IDW
IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books,
graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, California. As
a leader in the horror, action, and sci-fi genres, IDW publishes some
of the most successful and popular titles in the industry including:
television’s #1 prime time series CBS’ CSI:
Crime Scene Investigation; Paramount’s Star Trek; Fox’s Angel; Hasbro’s
The Transformers, and the BBC’s Doctor Who. IDW’s original horror
series, 30 Days of Night, was launched as a major motion picture in
October 2007 by Sony Pictures and was the #1 film
in its first week of release. In April 2008, IDW released Michael
Recycle, the first title from its new children’s book imprint,
Worthwhile Books. More information about the company can be found at http://www.idwpublishing.com.

Review: Love Is a Peculiar Type of Thing by Box Brown

  • Uncategorized
  • June 16, 2009
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Love Is a Peculiar Type of Thing
By Box Brown
Self-published, no company name; February 2009, $10.00
 

It’s not often you find a book about someone named Ben created by someone named Box – the standard in comics is the other way around – but this is that book. In case you’re confused by the name, Box Brown is a new cartoonist – he has a series of strips, Bellen!, available online, though he denies that they’re a webcomic – and not the 19th century slave who escaped from Virginia via parcel post.

[[[Love Is a Peculiar Type of Thing]]] collects about ninety pages of comics in a semi-autobiographical vein about a character named Ben. Ben is usually separate from his creator, but the two aren’t always distinct – and Brown draws himself very similarly to Ben in the first place. (But, to be fair, he knows this and points it out in one of the earlier strips in the book.) Ben and Box are both young and somewhat directionless, having gone through a few years in an unspecified corporate rat race before dropping out – Brown to create this book, and Ben to do something that’s unspecified or not clearly separated enough from Brown.

(more…)

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Did Marvel really expect us to be surprised? And what lies in the closet of the man who created SUPERMAN? Plus, how funny is back at the top of the box office for the second week!


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mess-of-everything-2671692

Review: A Mess of Everything by Miss Lasko-Gross

  • Uncategorized
  • June 15, 2009
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A Mess of Everything
By Miss Lasko-Gross
Fantagraphics Books, April 2009, $19.99

According to page 119, the heroine of this story writes comics as “Miss Lasko-Gross,” but her legal name (at least at this point, when she’s in high school) is “Melissa Anne Lasko Gross,” and the two last names are from both her mother and father. However, the back cover notes that Mess is semi-autobiographical, which could either mean “a few names and events were changed for various artistic and protecting-the-innocent reasons” or “it makes a better story this way, and good stories are worth it.” Since I don’t know which one is true, I’ll tread lightly on the “autobiographical” and assume it’s all “semi” – that’s safer, anyway.

[[[A Mess of Everything]]] is the story of the high school years of Melissa, whose younger years were previously covered in Lasko-Gross’s debut graphic novel, Escape from “Special.” Lasko-Gross runs through those years in a series of short stories, from single-pagers up to a dozen or so.

(more…)

‘Pearls Before Swine’ endorsement video

  • News
  • June 15, 2009

Normally, we wouldn’t promote in such blatant promotion efforts. Heck, we haven’t even gotten around to publishing our own GrimJack press release. But this touching effort by Stephan Pastis for his latest Pearls Before Swine collection was so earnest, we just had to show you.

Pearls Sells Out: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury, the 12th book in the series, comes out August 18. Order now.

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