Start the week off by dumping a few friends on Facebook and getting a free Whopper (no kidding) and then adding some big time celebs to your Twitter account (like maybe some of the Cool People on HEROES). We tell you how to do both, plus the five cool things in comic stores this week and the Countdown To NY ComicCon begins.|
PRESS THE BUTTON and you’ll Get The Point!
or RSS!
The Alcoholic
By Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
DC Comics, October 2008, $19.99
The main character of T[[[he Alcoholic]]] is one Jonathan A., a writer who looks very much like writer Jonathan Ames and whose life has been exceptionally similar to Ames’s. Those who have read Ames before know that this is nothing new: he is his own best subject, either transformed fictionally in novels like [[[I Pass Like Night]]] and [[[Wake Up, Sir!]]] or poured out in his rawly hilarious nonfiction in [[[What’s Not To Love?]]] Jonathan A. is and is not Jonathan Ames; The Alcoholic isn’t a memoir but a novel (a graphic novel – very graphic in places), and so we must treat A. as a fictional character.
(I think I’ll refer to him as A. from here on; it adds an oddly Kafkaesque air – or, and perhaps more appropriately, a sense of anonymity and confession.)
The Alcoholic is A.’s life story – or at least as much of his life as concerns alcohol and sex – from 1979 through late 2001, high school through early middle age. It opens in August 2001, as A. is waking up in a station wagon in Asbury Park, with an old, very short woman trying to seduce him after a long night of drinking.
From the creators of the Harvey-nominated EZ Street comes a hero for the ages, in the thrilling pulp adventure Lone Justice: Crash!
Lone Justice: Crash! is the new graphic novel from the Harvey award nominated team of Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley. It’s the sideways sequel to the Harvey Award nominated EZ STREET graphic novel, also perpetrated by the Tinnell and Wheatley team. Why sideways? In EZ STREET, the central characters Scott and Danny Fletcher are attempting to create a graphic novel. And LONE JUSTICE: CRASH! is the graphic novel they create.
First Savage Dragon went in with the endorsement. Spider-Man followed up with the inauguration appearance. Then Mad. Now we have the upcoming Captain Action #5 from Moonstone, where the hero actually becomes Obama.
For a hero who is already known for becoming Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, Aquaman, the Phantom, The Lone Ranger, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Sgt. Fury, Steve Canyon, and the Green Hornet, putting Obama in that pantheon is pretty darn awesome.
At the Television Critics Association meeting on Friday, Nickelodeon announced that they were giving the go-ahead for 26 additional episodes of the computer-generated animated series The Penguins of Madagascar, for a total of 52 episodes. A Nickelodeon and DreamWorks Animation co-production, The Penguins of Madagascar is set to launch on the network Saturday, March 28 at 9:30 PM. The series will air regularly Saturdays at 10 AM starting April 4.
Remember, boys… cute and cuddly…
In other animation news, HBO renewed the animated comedy The Life and Times of Tim for a second season.
In a somewhat off-the-usual track for news of this type, Michael Jensen at AfterElton.com cornered BBC America president Garth Ancier and asked him about Torchwood: Children of Earth, and Ancier dropped a few tidbits:
He didn’t yet have a firm air date as BBC America is waiting for the BBC to finalize their date, but he was fairly certain that it was going to be the first part of this summer, possibly late June or early July.
He also said that not only would BBC America air the five episodes on consecutive nights as they are doing across the pond, but that they would also air in th U.S. the same day as they did in the U.K. meaning American audiences will have almost no lag time in seeing the series. (The U.K. is five hours ahead of the east coast of the U.S meaning the delay should be about that give or take). Ancier said the series might also air in High Definition, a first for BBCA.
Nice catch, Michael!
(By the way, the image is from the marvelously warped Torchwood Babiez.)
In the middle of a weekend movie recap article with the fascinating headline "Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson Spanked by Clint Eastwood" we come across these horrible statistics:
From Friday-Sunday, the broken-down Spirit sold about 24 tickets a day at each of its theaters. The above stat brought to you by highly speculative movie math: take the weekend per-screen average ($515) divide by three, and then divide by the average ticket price ($7.20).
My city screams, indeed.
John Kenneth Galbraith’s dictum about the end of financial euphorias states that a previously omnipotent figure from the boom must be dethroned in the bust.
So who is that going to be in the comic book world? Who was invincible in the past that’s going to going to get knocked off him perch in the not-too-near future?
Discuss in the comments.
A quick wrapup of the mix of comics and politics:
And while we’re on the subject of Obama, one of his biggest boosters was Caroline Kennedy, who’s currently under consideration for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. And Caroline Kennedy’s been in comics a lot longer than most.
Editorial cartoons are getting endangered, with newspapers beginning to fold up shop. Tom Spurgeon has a very informative write-up (boy, that’s redundant) on the problems at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and what that means for comics.
You can now go back to watching Meet The Press.
Time Magazine reports on the latest victims of the economic downturn by reprinting this letter to the employees of Rich Enterprises, Inc.:
From: Richie Rich, President and CEO
My loyal employees,
There is no other way to say it, so I’ll just say it. We are broke. I unwisely invested all our company’s funds with Bernard Madoff, and now the money is now gone, never to return. As of January 1, 2009, Rich Enterprises is no more. You are all without a job, healthcare and pension. And for this I am terribly sorry.
I was always known as "the poorest little rich boy," but today, that is literally true. I have nothing. Every asset has been liquidated. My gold racecar that runs on cash has been sold. My dollar-sign shaped swimming pool filled with diamonds has been drained. I have had to fire my beloved butler, Cadbury, and he is now the personal valet of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Such is my poverty that I have had to shave the signature dollar sign fur pattern off my thusly-named dog.
Believe me, I have tried every option to avoid this catastrophe. I appealed to my cousin and longtime rival, Reggie Van Dough, for a loan, but he too was heavily invested with Madoff. Tragically, Reggie took his own life by riding his emerald-encrusted skate board under the deadly tank treads of Irona, my robot maid. Best wishes, Reggie. I hope you’re with Casper now…
Luckily, Bruce Wayne is still doing fine. Nothing’s stopping that Dark Knight money.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
