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ComicMix Quick Picks – April 9, 2009

  • Uncategorized
  • April 10, 2009

kirby-thing-torah-4445474A round-up of items from the last few days…

  • Hugh Jackman heartbroken over ‘Wolverine’ leak: Jackman said, "Obviously people are seeing an unfinished film. It’s like a Ferrari without a paint job." Jackman is on a world tour to promote the movie, making his first stop at Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbor, where much of the film was shot. He arrived at the venue by helicopter before swooping to the ground on a zipline.
     
  • Today is the golden anniversary of the Magnificent Mercury Seven.
     
  • Today is also the first day of Passover, so here’s a list of Jewish Superheroes, Villains, and other Comic Book Characters. How they missed Yoda, I’ll never know.
     
  • At last. The State will be coming to DVD July 14th. Get your $240 worth of pudding ready. Buy it and make Mo Willems cry.
     
  • And finally, Dave Arneson, who introduced Gary Gygax to the possibility of roleplaying gaming, succumbed to cancer on April 7th, at the age of 61. Bruce Baugh has an appreciation of his life and times.

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

Wizard acquires Big Apple Con

  • News
  • April 8, 2009

Straight from Heidi at The Beat comes word that the Big Apple Con has been purchased by Wizard and will move to a new venue, Pier 94, and an October date for this year.  If this date holds for next year it would put the show in direct competition with the New York Comic-Con which is moving to a fall date next year.

The Big Apple Con had been held at the rapidly decaying Penn Plaza Hotel– a great location, a lousy facility. Wizard has had its own problems with the cancellation of their Texas show, the postponement of their Los Angeles show, and the cutbacks in their publishing line. The Chicago and Philly shows are still planned. As with other Wizard shows, the new Big Apple Con will be partnered with another pop culture show, this time the Video Game Expo. Here’s the press release:

Gareb Shamus, CEO of New York-based Wizard Entertainment,  today announced he has acquired Big Apple Con, one of the trailblazing brands in the comic book and pop culture world, and the longest running annual show in New York City. The “new” Big Apple Con is moving to Pier 94 in Manhattan the weekend of October 16-18, 2009.
“I’ve been going to shows in New York City since I was a kid and I have a fondness for Big Apple Con,” Shamus said. “Today’s acquisition fulfills a dream of running a mega-show in New York City unlike anything there’s ever been.”

This move also enjoys tremendous support and enthusiasm from industry leaders. “Diamond is really looking forward to working closely with our friends at Wizard as they expand into the New York market,” said Bill Schanes, Vice President for Purchasing at Diamond Comics. “We anticipate a great event based on their ability to attract key talent, to promote and market the event, and at the same time to give consumers a tremendous value for their admission price.”

Ed Fleming, CEO/Founder of Video Game Expo (VGXPO), the largest East Coast expo of its kind, announced recently its partnership with Wizard World Philly. Now, VGXPO will expand its relationship to include Chicago Comic-Con and Big Apple Con as well. “Our partnership provides VGXPO with the ability to rapidly grow our footprint from Philadelphia to Chicago and now New York City,” he said. “We look forward to working and sharing our passion for video games with all the fans in New York.”

Michael Carbonaro , the longtime and current producer of the show, will continue to provide his limitless creativity and enthusiasm to the show.

Good luck, folks– you’ll need it.

little-things1-2911386

Review: Three by Jeffrey Brown

  • Uncategorized
  • April 8, 2009

Jeffrey Brown appeared in the comics world a few years back, with his painfully confessional (and almost as painfully crudely drawn) graphic novels [[[Clumsy]]] and [[[Unlikely]]]. He’s expanded beyond autobiography since then, mostly into odd but straight-faced takes on geeky topics, such as [[[Incredible Change-Bots]]]. He had three new books in 2008 – well, at least three new books; it’s entirely possible that I missed something – a big autobiographical book and two smaller, weirder books in a new, very loose, series. So I thought I might as well look at them all together, before he publishes another four or five books.

little-things1-2911386

Little Things
By Jeffrey Brown
Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, April 2008, $14.00

This one is subtitled “[[[A Memoir in Slices]]],” and, yes, it’s yet another in the tsunami of memoir-comics from major not-usually-comics publishers. (I guess they’re all hoping for another [[[Persepolis]]] or [[[Maus]]], and not looking to far from the apple tree, either.) Brown has a two-page comics introduction, in which he explains the book to someone on the phone – which comes down to “Anyway, they’re a bunch of autobiographical short stories and they’re funny sometimes.”

(more…)

About the 2009 Eisner Award nominations…

  • News
  • April 8, 2009

Now that the 2009 Eisner Award nominations are out, we’d like to again congratulate all of the nominees– but we’d like to also take a moment of your time and explain why we aren’t among them.

It’s really simple– we didn’t submit anything for the Eisner nominations this year.

This probably comes as a surprise to a number of our fans, and certainly all of the talented folks that work for us and created award worthy pieces. No, we didn’t even submit EZ Street, even though it got a Harvey nomination for 2008 as Best Online Comic.

The reason is shown in the photo to the right of the Eisner judges. See the big guy with the glasses on the far right? That’s Andrew Wheeler. He does a lot of reviewing for us here at ComicMix, and we’ve paid him for them. Filthy lucre has changed hands.

We were as surprised as he was when he was selected for the judging panel– and we knew immediately that we were in a potential ethical bind. Could we submit work without putting Andrew in a bind? Heck, there’s a category for which Andrew is indirectly eligible, Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism. And yet, we couldn’t in good conscience ask Andrew to recuse himself; he’s a damn fine reviewer and that’s why we love him, and a look at the nominations makes you realize exactly how good he is. But if we were nominated in any category, it would call Andrew’s impartiality into question and taint the awards.

Ultimately, we just decided to give this year’s Eisners a pass, rather than let there be even a hint of impropriety. We’re sorry that this unfairly penalizes our creators, but we didn’t see a better way.

So once more, congratulations to all the nominess. And we’ll see you this year at the Harvey Awards… and watch out for us next year in San Diego!

The 2009 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees

  • News
  • April 8, 2009

The nominations for the best of the year are finalized. Ballots with this year’s nominees will be going out in mid-April to comics creators, editors, publishers, and retailers. A downloadable pdf of the ballot will also be available online, and a special website has been set up for online voting. The results in all categories will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on the evening of Friday, July 24 at Comic-Con International. More information about the Eisner Awards can be found by clicking here.

Congratulations to Simone & Ajax creator Andrew Pepoy on his nominations for Best Short Story and Best Continuing Series, and to all the other nominees!

Here’s the full list of nominees… (more…)

I-Con 28: ‘Under the Radar: Comics You’re Missing’

  • News
  • April 7, 2009

alien-loves-predator-3955576Among the exciting adventures at I-Con was a panel titled "Under the Radar: Comics You’re Missing." The panelists (Carl Fink, Bob Greenberger, Glenn Hauman, Andy Weir, Bernie Hou, and me) and attendees came up with the following list, which we promised we’d post for reference. You should check them out if you aren’t reading them already:

Webcomics:

Print Comics:

Of course, the real takeaway from the panel was that you should be getting your comics news and reviews from ComicMix.com!

Review: ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ DVD

The Day The Earth Stood Still was unique for a science fiction film when the original was released in 1951. It played everything with a documentary feel and treated the science fiction concepts as real and nothing to be mocked. It was understated and earnest and earned its place in the list of great science fiction films.

While a little preachy, at least Klaatu had the chance to address the greatest scientific minds and issue his warning that mankind had to deal with their nuclear arsenals and avoid self-annihilation or it would be done for them.

In the remake, out today on DVD, Klaatu never gets to make the address. This is one of the most glaring failings in the film which starts off well and then falls apart in the final third.  The nuclear issue was turned to an ecological one, which is perfectly valid, but after that, characterization is avoided in favor of a plodding story.

Keanu Reeves is fine as the unearthly visitor and his lack of chemistry with Jennifer Connelly is appropriate. Jaden Smith, as her step-son, swings between cute and petulant, perfectly appropriate for his age but, whereas the first film focused on the world through the boy’s eyes and gave Klaatu a reason for hope; the relationship depicted here is thin.  At no point, does Klaatu get to see the world for himself, relying entirely on a brief conversation with one of his kind who has been on Earth the past seven decades.

The internal logic for the way Klaatu’s alien powers works seems entirely lacking while the nanites that comprise Gort make far more sense. The stylishly updated Gort works far better than Klaatu or his energy globe of a vessel.

The supporting cast is filled with fine actor who are given little or nothing to do and their wasted talent is a shame. John Cleese and Jon Hamm have more to do than Kathy Bates and all three deserved more screen time.

The scant special features include three brief deleted scenes that add nothing to the experience. There’s a featurette on how the “reimaging” happened along with a focus on the special effects going into Gort.  The final two, [[[Watching The Skies:  In Search Of Extraterrestrial Life]]], and [[[The Day The Earth Was “Green”]]] are pleasant viewing experiences but are nothing extraordinary. There’s also a still gallery and production photos.

The DVD is available in a variety of formats starting with the two-disc special edition that includes the original film. The three disc version has a digital copy (which is almost de rigueur for big budget releases these days). The Blu-ray edition, not reviewed, also has the original film and two extra features.

ComicMix Quick Picks – April 6, 2009

  • Uncategorized
  • April 7, 2009

A round-up of items from the last few days…

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

Len Wein house fire

  • News
  • April 7, 2009

Harlan Ellison just posted the following on his website:

Monday, April 6 2009 11:55:36 EXTREMELY BAD NEWS

 Len Wein called this morning. More than half of his house burned down earlier today. Len and Chris Valada and Chris’s son, Michael, got out okay, but their beloved dog, Sheba, ran back inside and is gone. In addition to both bedrooms, the bathroom, and much of the office, what was burned first was the original art for the first Wolverine story, the cover of GIANT X-MEN #1 and other art pieces worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Susan and I will be over there as soon as I pick up my car today, and as soon as I’ve met the dental appointment we have scheduled. This is a major catastrophe for one of my oldest and closest friends. Like your Host, Len is a lifetime freelancer and, even though he remains a star of the comics world, even though he created Wolverine and Storm–among other characters–he goes from day to day earning a freelancer’s living, as do I… and these are frightening economic times for those of us out there, to paraphrase Arthur Miller, “on a few words and a shoeshine.”

As bad as the news is, we’re relieved to hear that Len, Christine and Michael are okay. We’ll pass along whatever additional information that we can.

The Point – April 6th, 2009

  • News
  • April 6, 2009

Another familiar voice and the guy behind it – Meet Neil Kaplan, once Transformer’s Optimus Prime and now a comic creator in his own right. Plus Mike Gold regrets REBIRTH and The Big Two are where you might want to place your bucks in the comic store this week.

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