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Interview Series With Al Jaffee, Jules Feiffer, Harvey Pekar In New York Begins January 21

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  • January 17, 2009

The YIVO Institute presents one-on-one interviews with Al Jaffee, Jules Feiffer, and Harvey Pekar. YIVO’s “Comics and the American Jewish Dream” series kicks off Wednesday, January 21 at 7:00 pm with:

"The Mad, Mad, Mad (Jewish) World Of Al Jaffee"

A graduate of New York’s High School of Art and Design, Jaffee worked as an editor, writer and artist for Stan Lee at Timely (later Marvel) Comics during the 1940s. In 1955, Jaffee joined “the Usual Gang of Idiots” at Mad Magazine, where he’s been a mainstay ever since, entertaining generations with his Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions and Mad Fold-Ins. Join us as Jaffee provides snappy answers to provocative questions about his art and life, including his new book, Tall Tales, published by Abrams.

Series curator and moderator Danny Fingeroth, a longtime writer and editor at Marvel Comics, has spoken about comics at the Smithsonian Institution and The New School. He’s the author of Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero (Continuum) and The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels (Penguin).

Wednesday, January 21, 7:00
The YIVO Institute For Jewish Research
15 West 16th Street / New York, NY 10011

The series will continue with:
Jules Feiffer: Tuesday, February 3, 7:00 P.M.
Harvey Pekar: Tuesday, February 17, 7:00 P.M.

Admission to programs: $25 / YIVO members: $18 / students: $12
For tickets: call 212-868-4444 or visit www.smarttix.com
For more info visit www.yivo.org

Tips from Cory Doctorow on writing while avoiding online distractions

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  • January 17, 2009

If you’re like me, you’re wondering how to write blog posts on comics-related stuff and other neat things on the web, without getting too distracted by what else is on the web. It’s not an easy task, as anyone who’s seen my computer desktop, with 50 different windows open for different sites that I keep meaning to write up into blog posts are.

Luckily, one of those windows has an article from Cory Doctorow, who’s one of the most wired-up folks I know. IDW recently adapted a bunch of his short stories into comics, he’s one of the guys behind BoingBoing, and…

 

…sorry, I just spent ten minutes catching up on BoingBoing– apparently there’s a job opening for a science fiction writer, 16 grand for four months, but you have to be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada, dang it.

Anyway, Cory’s written a piece about writing in the age of distraction, which you should read. Or at least open it up and promise yourself you’ll read it later.

Oh, and the picture of Cory is from xkcd. A truly amazing likeness. Wonder what else is in the archiv– no. Stop. Take the win. Stop and post.

Kevin Colden and Miss Lasko-Gross signing in Drexel Hill, PA

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  • January 17, 2009

From Kevin Colden:

I’ll be doing a hometown signing for Fishtown THIS SATURDAY, January 17th at:

Cool Stuff Comics and Collectibles
417 Burmont Rd.
Drexel Hill, Pa.
3PM-5PM

Miss will also be there signing copies of Escape From "Special" and showing off pages from her forthcoming follow-up A Mess of Everything.

Well? You heard the man. Get going. Ten miles west of Philadelphia. Can’t miss it.

ComicMix Politics: Ted Rall presents ‘The Bushies’

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  • January 17, 2009

Ted Rall and David Essman have released a new short animated political cartoon called "Behind the Rubric: The Bushies", a surrealist, rock-n-roll-super-group spin on the outgoing George W. Bush’s resume, along with what happens now that the band is breaking up…

Only mildly unfair and rude. Which for Ted Rall is pretty good.

‘Watchmen’ battle leads to ‘Foundation’ going to Sony?

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  • January 16, 2009

Okay, this one is complicated. Bear with us.

Variety reports that Columbia won an auction late Thursday for screen rights to Foundation, Isaac Asimov’s science fiction trilogy quad series. The film will be developed as a directing vehicle for Roland Emmerich. This is a surprise development, possibly stemming from bad blood between Warner Bros. and Fox over Watchmen.

The property was originally developed by Fox and producer Vince Gerardis, then found its way to New Line (a division of WB) and went with Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne as the first major project announcement after the former heads of New Line got bounced formed Unique Pictures at WB.

Gerardis, whose "Created By" formerly represented the Asimov estate, was attached as producer. And Fox would have had to be compensated for its development costs. That became a problem for WB (can’t imagine why, after the pleasant experiences with Watchmen) and the studio let its option lapse, expecting to quietly make a new deal with a clear chain of rights that would have left Fox and Gerardis cut out. So it went to auction. WB bid for Unique and director Alex Proyas, Fox bid for Gerardis. Emmerich and Sony were last minute bidders– it seems that Emmerich’s partner Michael Wimer at Centropolis Pictures had been tracking the availability of the rights since he was Emmerich’s agent at CAA, and Columbia Pictures president Matt Tolmach grabbed it.

Just another Hollywood ending.

Foundation was originally published as a series of eight short stories in Astounding Magazine beginning in 1942, "Foundation" is a complex saga about humans who are scattered on planets throughout the galaxy, living under the rule of the Galactic Empire. Hari Selden, a psycho-historian who can scientifically predict the future, sees an imminent empire collapse, and sets in motion a plan to save civilization and the knowledge of mankind.

 

Manga Friday: The Dregs

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  • January 16, 2009

Manga Friday took a little holiday for the last couple of weeks, and it may take more holidays in the weeks to come. Looking back on my recent columns, I’ve said an awful lot of “and here’s the next volume in a series I’ve reviewed four times” and “this week’s books have nothing in common” – and neither of those are quite what I’d hoped. I think I’m reviewing too many of the same manga, too often, so I expect to cut back on Manga Friday substantially in 2009, unless I start seeing more different things.

I expect to keep reviewing stuff here on Fridays, but there may be somewhat less of the specifically Japanese/Korean stuff for a while. (Or possibly not – whenever I try to predict something like this, I’m usually wrong.) But I’ll save the name “Manga Friday” for when I’m looking at books that would be called manga by that legal construct, the “reasonable man.”

So, for this week, I have three books, arranged in ascending order of volume number:

The Manzai Comics
Story by Atsuko Asano; Art by Hizuru Imai
Aurora, January 2009, $10.95

This opens with an odd hint of yaoi, as large, athletic, energetic, popular student Takashi Akimoto begs small, weak, timid (generic manga hero Type 1) Ayumu Seta to “please go out with me” and “do it with me.” Takashi actually wants to form a manzai comedy team with Ayumu, but he’s either too dim or too focused on himself to actually say that for several pages.

(Apparently – I have no personal knowledge of this, but several references agree – the dominant form of comedy in Japan is manzai, two-person acts, rather than sketch comedy or stand-up or improv. Think Abbot & Costello or Crosby & Hope.)

Ayumu is not just an ordinary shy boy – well, he’s a manga hero, so you know there’s got to be some horribly dramatic thing in his past – he considers himself responsible for the car-crash death of his father and older sister because he was clinically depressed (and completely untreated as well). So he has the standard “I just want to be normal” complex of the dweeby manga hero in spades. (more…)

The Point – January 16th, 2009

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  • January 16, 2009

Battlestar Galactica‘s final ten episodes have begun and Baltar stops in to say farewell, Mike Gold tells us what to watch, DC has the best selling thing in the comic stores plus David & Maddie together again? Can it be true?

 

PRESS THE BUTTON and you’ll Get The Point!

And be sure to stay on The Point via badgeitunes61x15dark-7224549 or RSS!

 

On fan battles, audience interaction, what’s real, and who’s stronger, the Thing or the Hulk?

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  • January 16, 2009

Patrick Nielsen Hayden makes a comment on Tor.com that really deserves wider dissemination:

"SF fans in general tend to be discursive sorts…"

Which is another way of saying that SF readers tend to get invested in not just the story, but the argument.

And once you care about the argument, you care about the people pursuing it.

There are dozens of ways to make this dynamic seem trivial or pathetic, but really, it’s just people caring about what’s real.

Speaking just as a reader, forget about as a professional, the plain fact is that in a world of limited time and options-that-exclude, given the choice between a new Charles Stross novel and a new Greg Egan novel, I’m going to read the Stross, because I know that if I want to talk about it afterwards, Stross is available for conversation and Egan isn’t.

There are dozens of ways to frame this as evidence of Egan being a hero of artistic independence, but you know something, I don’t care. I’m just a reader trying to have an non-boring life. Stross goes out of his way, via extra levels of interaction and availability, to make the whole business of novels and art non-boring. Egan doesn’t. Life is short.

It’s true. And in a field where the arguments are even more passionate (see above picture) the fan base can be even more intense, and it carries over to the field.

And the Internet makes it even more intense. Think about it: who constantly tops the lists of favorite comics writers? Neil Gaiman, Brain Bendis, Peter David, Mark Evanier, Warren Ellis, JMS… even if they don’t have a series running at the moment, they have a dedicated fan base because they immerse themselves in the arguments, in the culture. And yes, every one of the people listed have a blog. That’s where fans are nowadays. You’re here, aren’t you?

Mark Waid, the pre-eminent fanboy-turned-pro-turned-recent-blogger, has a great example this week where he talks about the six traits that a hero should possess, and then provokes a fight by asking people to try and convince him why Indiana Jones should be considered a hero– which makes a few readers ask him why, by his criteria, Spider-Man should be considered a hero. (And since he wrote what’s going to be the best selling issue of Spider-Man this year, if not this decade, he should probably have an answer.) The argument was compelling enough that I took an hour to formulate an argument and contribute when I should have been finishing this blog post. And that’s the point.

What about you? Do you think there’s such a thing as an anti-social comics fan, even if his social interaction is limited to arguing who’s stronger, Benjy or Bruce? And would you enjoy comics as much if you couldn’t argue them with somebody else, or is the solitary enjoyment of pleasure enough for you?

Oh, and that image reminds me of this neat Hulk vs. Thing art gallery I found. Enjoy.

ComicMix QuickPicks – January 15, 2009

Today’s installment of comic-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest…

* From, of all places, New Jersey Jewish News: "I’ve come to the realization recently that Israel and Batman have a lot in common. And in order to make sense of one, we can look to the other." Yes, I can just imagine Israel quoting Frank MIller dialogue with regards to Gaza. "Sure we’re criminals. We’ve always been criminals. We have to be criminals."

* ICV2: "Marvel has filed suit against MGA Entertainment for alleged violations of its licensing agreement with the company, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The suit asks for $1.88 million, alleging unpaid licensing fees and that MGA made toys based on Spider-Man and Ghost Rider, which were not included in the companies’ licensing agreement." Gee, MGA isn’t having a good year, between this and getting Bratz shut down…

* Want to buy yourself the Hugo Award for your work? It might be cheaper than you think. It’s certainly within any movie company’s marketing budget.

* Like that Coraline poster over there? Order it here and help the American Library Association.

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

‘Watchmen’ legal fight settled

  • News
  • January 16, 2009

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. and Fox have resolved their dispute over Watchmen, with the studios scheduled to present a likely settlement to Judge Gary Feess on Friday morning and request that the case be dismissed:

Terms of the agreement will not be disclosed, but it is said to involve a sizable cash payment to Fox and a percentage of the film’s boxoffice. Fox will not be a co-distributor on the film, nor will it own a piece of the "Watchmen" property going forward. The studios are set to release a joint statement announcing the agreement Friday.

A Warners spokesperson would not comment on the settlement. A Fox spokesman said no final deal had been reached….

While [producer Lawrence] Gordon is not a party to the case, Warners is said to be pursuing the producer and his attorneys to reimburse it for the costs of the settlement. During the course of the litigation, Gordon’s then-attorney admitted that he negotiated Gordon’s 1994 separation from Fox without knowing about a pre-existing 1991 agreement on which Fox has based its lawsuit.

Boy, I wouldn’t like to be Gordon’s insurance company now…

In the meantime, it sounds like I will actually be able to see the film for my birthday. Which almost makes up for my impending decrepitude. And that’s worth a smiley face, blood stained though it may be.

Has anybody figured out how to make a blood stained smiley face emoticon?

(Hat tip: Mmike Wweber.)

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