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Webcomics You Should Be Reading: “Garfield Minus Garfield”!

  • Uncategorized
  • March 30, 2009

fsymsogxo67tah5sjho5agrf_500-3210951Howdy folks! We’re back here today to take a step into the post-modern… a step into the existential… a step into a parallel dimension. No, not the twilight zone. Today’s ‘Webcomic You Should Be Reading” is an experiment utilizing one of America’s most cherished cartoon characters. Who you ask? Why, it’s Jon Arbuckle, the would-be owner of an obese and lazy cat, named Garfield. We’re quite familiar with the Garfield strip, aren’t we? Since 1978, the world has been privvy to the the misadventures of this lazy fat cat and his awkward geek of an owner. Years later, an Irishman (Dan Walsh) took an idea shared by many, and gave it birth in webcomic form. Mr. Walsh graced the interwebs with Garfield Minus Garfield.

In a nut shell, take Jim Davis’ acclaimed comic, and remove the titular main character… What do you end up with? As Dan Walsh puts it… you get “…[the] reveal [of] the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle agianst loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.” I just say you get to take a cherished comic, and make it a post-modern laugh fest.

Now, obviously enjoyment of the material comes with the knowledge of the source material. When “G-G” works, it works well. Minus his kitty companion (or really any other elements in the strips) Jon is sad, pathetic, and possibly schitzophrenic. Successive reading of multiple strips in a row only makes the joke funnier. But, when the majority of the strip leaves bookended blank panels… this fan grows quickly bored. Why? Well, the joke itself of removing that darn cat can make for some funny asides by Jon. Dramatic pauses add to the humor of most of these situations, but, in these strips in particular… it leaves a little too much to the imagination. Given the decades worth of material though, Walsh has plenty to work with, and there are plenty of funny re-imagined strips to present to we, the surly and overly critical internet population.

So what, pray-tell, does Mr. Jim Davis think of this Frankensteining of his most famous creation?

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Nebraska elementary school library lends Spider-Man graphic novel to six-year old

  • News
  • March 30, 2009

Yeah, you better look over your shoulder, Spidey.

KETV, an Omaha, Nebraska TV station, recently aired a story about the mother of a 6-year-old boy who brought home a copy of a Spider-Man graphic novel from his elementary school in Millard Nebraska.  The book is J. Michael Straczynski’s Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2: Revelations, which was rated “PG, Ages 12+” by Marvel.  The report showed panels featuring John Romita Jr.’s art depicting Mary Jane in a bikini and a short skirt from Amazing Spider-Man #39, the "Nuff Said" issue.

Physha Svendsen, the mother of the boy at the center of this dispute, contends that the book is not age appropriate for elementary school students and wants it removed from the school library.  Donna Helvering, the school district’s head librarian, said that the school will form a committee to evaluate the complaint within 30 days and the committee will decide whether to keep the book on the school’s library shelves or not.

You can see the report for yourself at the KETV web site.

ComicMix Quick Picks – what day is it? March 32nd?

What it’s been like here recently…

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Just way too much stuff to go through, and we’ve been very busy with the print announcement and rushing to get things ready for the Previews catalog, and I have dozens of tabs open to blog about and consolidate. Wheeee!

So this will be more of a high-speed link dump from the last few days. Onward:

  • The cast and crew of Battlestar Galactica at the United Nations – "We are all Cylons. We are all Colonials." Alex Epstein’s take on the last episode of BSG: Seriously? That’s What You Got? My favorite comment on the finale, from Sabrina: "There can be no more spoilers for BSG, because they spoiled it themselves."
     
  • Don’t forget tonight’s Family Guy/Star Trek The Next Generation crossover.
     
  • Non-comics link of the day: John Mellencamp on The State of the Music Business:
    Over the last few years, we have all witnessed the decline of the music business, highlighted by finger-pointing and blame directed against record companies, artists, internet file sharing and any other theories for which a case could be made. We’ve read and heard about the "good old days" and how things used to be. People remember when music existed as an art that motivated social movements. Artists and their music flourished in back alleys, taverns and barns until, in some cases, a popular groundswell propelled it far and wide. These days, that possibility no longer seems to exist. After 35 years as an artist in the recording business, I feel somehow compelled, not inspired, to stand up for our fellow artists and tell that side of the story as I perceive it. Had the industry not been decimated by a lack of vision caused by corporate bean counters obsessed with the bottom line, musicians would have been able to stick with creating music rather than trying to market it as well.
    Hmm– maybe it is a comics link after all.

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  • ‘The Phantom’ will be on SciFi or SyFy or whatever they’re calling it. Impress me: get Billy Zane to do cameos.
     
  • Speaking of SciFi’s name change: SciFi Founder Hates Syfy, Issac Asimov would have hated it, and yo9 for the win.


  • Dharma wants you… since the 70’s apparently.
     

Anything else? Consider this an open thread. (Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.)

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Review: ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ on DVD

slumdog-1254985Pop culture is influenced by so many different factors and timing determines what will catch on and endure while other things, quality be damned, wither and die.  A perfect example is the Award-Winning darling of 2008, Slumdog Millionaire.

Based on the 2005 novel by Q & A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup, it was optioned for film by British production companies Celador Films and Film4 Productions who hired Simon Beaufoy to adapt it. By the time director Danny Boyle read the script and accepted the assignment, it was 2006. The budget was set at $15 million, meaning the producers needed a partner – enter Warner Independent which gambled $5 million for the right. Shooting began in November 2007 and it spent much of 2008 being screened at festivals starting with Telluride and the Toronto International.  But, a Warner Bros. exec saw the finished product and felt that once you added in prints and marketing, it was not likely to recoup its costs.

A different exec at 20th Century-Fox saw it but saw something different and bought the film from Warners and scheduled it for late in the year. By the time it opened on November 12, the economy tanked and people were in a mixed state of financial panic and political euphoria.  People wanted something to latch on to, something to make them forget the scary real world, at least for two hours.

[[[Slumdog Millionaire]]] was the perfect antidote for what was ailing our psyche. As a result, it has earned, through this past weekend, worldwide revenues of $268,103,477 making it hugely profitable and turning the stars Dev Patel and Freida Pinto into celebrities. Pretty heady stuff.

The movie, coming out on DVD Tuesday, is incredibly moving, exciting, funny, poignant and very predictable. While it was the Feel Good Movie of the Year and therefore swayed voters into giving it many prizes, it is not the greatest film of the year.  In addition to the enjoyable story, it also shined a documentary-style eye on India’s slum life and we watched in gaping fascination. This was not Bollywood or some idealized view of life, but the actual way the majority of the people lived in the heavily populated country. This, more than the story, may be one reason it was so well-received around the world.

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‘Famous Monsters’ trademark goes to Phil Kim

  • News
  • March 27, 2009

A long-simmering trademark dispute over who owns Famous Monsters of Filmland ended on Wednesday when a federal court in California issued a summary judgment temporary Injunction against Ray Ferry, who had lost the trademark during a bankruptcy filing. The mark was purchased for $25,000 by Phil Kim who has been trying to resurrect the brand, beginning with an FM website last May.

Famous Monsters of Filmland, in many ways, shaped the movies we are watching today.  The likes of Steven Spielberg, John Landis, Peter Jackson and George Lucas were all fans of the magazines in the days before there were even books on the subject of movie monsters and filmmaking. The magazine’s influence was celebrated in the documentary film Fan Boys.

The 12-page document from Judge Gary Allen Feess of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (who you may remember from the litigation between Fox and Warner Bros. over the Watchmen movie) read in part, “Defendants are hereby ENJOINED from operating the famousmonsters.com, famousmonsters.biz, and filmlandclassics.com websites, and from marketing, selling, or offering to sell any goods or services that contain, or are confusingly similar to, the ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ trademark or any derivatives thereof, including ‘Famous Monsters,’ until the present litigation has been fully resolved.

“Defendants failure to comply with this Order may be grounds for contempt sanctions, including possible imprisonment. In addition, Defendants are cautioned that they are not to impose upon this Court any further baseless or frivolous arguments that are directly contradicted or undermined by the evidence in the record, including those that the Court has expressly rejected in this Order.”

James Warren published the magazine beginning in 1958 and its success allowed him to launch Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella until he folded operations in the early 1980s. He then licensed FM to Ray Ferry who continued the magazine and at first had Warren’s editor, Forrest J Ackerman, on board.  The two had a falling out leading to a law suit which Ackerman won although he never saw any of the $500,000 judgment.

Ferry continued to publish the magazine sporadically despite losing the trademark. When Kim obtained it, there were two competing websites and Judge Frees ordered Ferry to cease using the related URLs.

Kim said in an email on Friday morning: “This is the first step in making Ferry a bad memory. Ferry’s reign of terror is over. His website will be no more. My only regret is that Forrest J Ackerman is not here to witness this. Forry may not have believed in the afterlife but I do, and I hope Forry is looking down on this and smiling…I know I am.”

“For what Ferry & Connie have cost me and how relentless they are, I have every intention of recovering my damages from them and those who are found guilty of aiding them in their illegal enterprise. This is just the beginning.”

Ferry’s aide Connie Bean told the Classic Horror Film Board, “Right now we have no comment until we read it. Also, I caution you all to realize that we will have our day in court. We don’t have to react to anything until we are served with it, so that is what we will do. I am assuming according to what I do know, that we move ahead with Shock and Freaky and go from there.

“Ray and I never run with our tails between our legs and will keep going no matter what, maybe not with FM but we will keep going anyway. We have to. It’s the right thing to do. All I know is that everyone will get what they paid us for at one time or another and we won’t leave fans hanging.”

While Kim now controls the trademark and can continue with his plans, the copyrights to the original 1982 issues of the magazine remain in Warren’s control. Creepy and Eerie, now licensed to Dark Horse Comics, are enjoying a resurgence of interest. Harris Publishing currently owns Vampirella.

UPDATE 5/14/09: The ruling was a temporary injunction, not a summary judgment. We regret the error.

The Point – March 27th, 2009

  • News
  • March 27, 2009

Meet Phil Morris, a man who’s love for the action hero genre stretches even into his bloodline and wait until you hear what he has planned next, plus Spider Girl is back again and Ingrid Michaelson‘s Twitter Tune that will be stuckin your head all weekend guaranteed.

PRESS THE BUTTON to Get The Point! 

 

And be sure to stay on The Point via badgeitunes61x15dark-1802532, RSS, MyPodcast.Com or Podbean

 

 

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Debbie Schlussel takes more shots at comics

  • News
  • March 27, 2009

air-2729750She’s baaaaaack.

Debbie Schlussel, the woman who claimed you were "probably a moron and a vapid, indecent human being" if you saw Watchmen, now has trained her sights on this Wall Street Journal piece on G. Willow Wilson and her book Air, calling it "ipecac in print". Why? Because Wilson’s a convert to Islam, and Debbie really doesn’t like Muslims. Oh, and according to Debbie, Obama’s a Muslim too. I think she also thinks Obama’s in thrall to his radical Christian preacher, and he’s probably a Marxist. Usually, you can only be one of those things at a time at most, but Debbie doesn’t let things like logic stand in her way.

This quote jumped out at me, though:

I’ve repeatedly written on this site how Marvel and DC–the two major comic book hero publishers–have repeatedly pandered to Muslims of the extremist variety (as if there’s any other kind) in storylines, characters, and even internships at movie studios.

Debbie, Marvel and DC do a lot of pandering, but trust us, it ain’t to Muslims.

Reading through her archives looking at her arguments, you can almost have fun if you do what I do: replace every instance of the word "Muslim" with "Mutant" and pretend you’re reading X-Men. I promise, it makes the reading experience bearable. And comical– you keep waiting for her to announce the Sentinel program to round up all the dirty Muslims. Mutants. Whatever.

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IDW and ComicMix Join Forces

  • News
  • March 26, 2009

idw-cmx-logo-8952454Well, we’ve been hinting at this for about six months now. Some of you traditionalists have been asking when and how and where and when you can buy printed versions of the ComicMix comics. I’m proud to announce that we have partnered up with our friends at IDW (where GrimJack and Jon Sable Freelance and Mars last appeared) to produce one graphic novel and two comic books each month, starting this fall. Plus hardcovers and omnibuses and such, as the market demands.

O.K., I’m one of those traditionalists as well, and while I love reading this stuff online (particularly on my iPhone), I’m looking forward to seeing them in print. And I’m looking forward to running my typical long-winded introductions in the trades and letter columns — yet, genuine letter columns! — in the comics.

So if you’d like to email us a letter for publication, just post ’em as comments to the comics. Oh, yeah, we’re starting off with GrimJack: The Manx Cat and Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes of Eden in mini-series format. As if we should start somewhere else? IDW’s press release, for the record:

SAN DIEGO, CA (March 25, 2009) – IDW Publishing, a leading publisher of comic books and graphic novels, has begun an innovative partnership with ComicMix.com, a free website offering new and classic comics. Through this multi-year agreement, IDW will publish graphic novels, books and comics for ComicMix.com properties, enabling both companies to expand their offerings to customers and retailers, and combine their audience reach.

“ComicMix has a great line up of original and classic brands that are currently only available online, and despite the shift to the virtual world, there is still something unmistakable about reading a real-life book” said Greg Goldstein, chief operating officer of IDW. “IDW is known for producing some of the highest quality books in our industry, and we are looking forward to offering this to fans of ComicMix properties.”

Beginning in the fall of 2009, IDW will release trade paperbacks of ComicMix comics, as well as monthly comics, including many new stories that have previously been only available online at ComicMix.com. Initial titles will include GrimJack: The Manx Cat by John Ostrander and Timothy Truman, Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes of Eden by Mike Grell, and Hammer of the Gods by Mark Wheatley and Mike Avon Oeming, among others.

“This is a bit of a homecoming for many of us at ComicMix, because we have had a professional relationship with IDW Publishing over the past several years,” ComicMix Editor-In-Chief Mike Gold noted. “We’re honored to be among such first-rate comics and graphic novels. Quite frankly, I don’t think the ComicMix properties could find a better publishing home than IDW.”

The partnership with ComicMix allows IDW to distribute comics via mobile devices, increasing the company’s growing digital, downloadable publishing program, which already includes several major titles such as Star Trek: Countdown and Ghostbusters.

About IDW Publishing

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 IDWPublishing.com.

About ComicMix.com

Organized in 2007, ComicMix.com is the free website for brand-new comics, news, opinion and historical research. Organized by comics veteran Mike Gold (DC Comics, First Comics, Image Comics), Internet pioneer Brian Alvey (WebLogs Inc., Blogsmith, AOL, Netscape) and print and online publishing vet Glenn Hauman (Random House, Simon & Schuster, BiblioBytes, DC Comics), ComicMix has been leading the comics industry in the production and online distribution of new comic book stories by major talent.

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