Welcome to Mixing it Up where breakout creators create things, break things, and hang out. Every week, David Gallaher experiences the world beyond comics to discuss the influences, hobbies, and thoughts of your favorite artists and writers. This week, David heads to Baltimore for a quick visit to the grave of Edgar Allan Poe and for drinks at the Inner Harbor with Sullengrey creator and Cthulhu Tales artist, Drew Rausch.

Baltimore gets deceptively chilly during October. Of course, not all the chills come from the strong breeze blowing over Chesapeake Bay … no, this is a chill that tingles your spine … and it’s a chill made real when you visit the grave of Edgar Allan Poe with Drew Rausch.

Drew is used to the chill though. He spends his days drawing all the things that go bump in the night. And, on a day like today, he’s already talking about ways to make the setting even more creepy.

"All we need now is a soundtrack. Something to make this a little more epic. Something from an Italian horror film would do nicely about now. Fulci? Or, maybe Dario Argento?"

With his hair buoyed by the chill of Charm City, Drew’s appearance would bring to mind the appearance of Cure frontman, Robert Smith, or perhaps Edward Scissorhands. And, while some are quick to label his work as gothic, it is a label Rausch rejects.

"I was never much into labeling. It’s just something the powers that be do to try and reach what they feel is the appropriate audience. For what I do, it’s art. Some will like it, others won’t. I try to incorporate a wide variety of influences from the spooky to the mundane. Granted, my everyday occasionally involves giant tentacles and flesh eating zombies."

"When we released the first mini series of Sullengrey, we were pigeon-holed into the whole spooky comic section of the comic store, which may have not been the best marketing, in my opinion. If you weren’t a fan of say Johnny the Homicidal Maniac or Lenore, you may have passed us by. But, we’ve been able to reach a broad audience through conventions just by people coming up and taking a peek at the trade." (more…)

IESB attended a press junket for the upcoming Malcolm Lee-directed Soul Men starring Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes. When asked if he’d be returning as Nick Fury for Iron Man 2, Samuel L. Jackson gave the thumbs up.

"Jackson replied that as a matter of fact, Iron Man director Jon Favreau spoke to him at the Scream Awards," reports IESB. "Favreau told Jackson that Nick Fury would have a much more prominent role in the second one."

The site is quick to point out that "[a prominent role] isn’t hard to accomplish considering he was relegated to the end of the film with a very short cameo."

Jackson later joked that he’ll make sure to sign a contract after Terrence Howard’s widely reported drop from the super-hero sequel. Don Cheadle will replace Howard as Jim Rhodes in Iron Man 2.

Later at the junket, Latino Review got the chance to ask Soul Men director Malcolm Lee if he’d ever be interested in working on a super-hero franchise. Lee replied that he’d love to direct an Iron Fist and Power Man dually headlined film. The two are commonly known to comic fans as Heroes for Hire.

"You got a white karate dude and a big blaxplotation dude," says Lee of the property. "I want it to be an action-comedy."

He described his desired tone for the movie as an aciton-comedy "in the vein of Bad Boys … as far as the comedy dynamic [goes] between [Luke Cage and Danny Rand.]"

While Lee wouldn’t talk about his ideal casting, there have been previous rumblings of a Tyrese Gibson starring Power Man and a Ray Park starring Iron Fist. Gibson reprises his role as USAF Tech Sergeant Epps in the upcoming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, while Park will be seen next summer as Snake-Eyes in G.I. Joe.

Spawn is now a teenager in the world of monthly super-hero comics, sixteen years old and counting since 1992 when creator Todd McFarlane moved out of Marvel’s House of Ideas to help form Image and launch his own flagship title.

In 2008, Spawn is trying to reinvent itself and attract more readers and interest in an era when attracting new readers for superhero monthlies is a big hurdle for anybody.

In issue 185, due out on Wednesday, Todd McFarlane will return to the book with Whilce Portacio taking on main art duty to kick off a new storyline called “Endgame”. Brian Holguin, a Spawn veteran, will be working with McFarlane on story and script.

With promises of new directions and changing how people look at the book, issue 185 is its own milestone with three confirmed covers by Todd McFarlane, Whilce Portacio, and Greg Capullo, along with its own website that’s been teasing readers for the past few weeks.

As Spawn closes in on a major milestone of 200 issues, I had the opportunity to chat with McFarlane over the phone about his return to Spawn, where the book has been, and where it’s going.

ComicMix: Spawn 185 kicks off a new storyline called “Endgame”. What is “Endgame” about?

Todd McFarlane: It’s a jumping on point for readers to get in on the ground level and not have to have a lot of backstory. That’s it, just sort of saying “hey, we’re going to come in here and dust some stuff off and make it accessible and start pushing it and creating new stories and situations within the Spawn mythology that hopefully you haven’t seen in the first 184 issues.” 

CMix: Where do you want this new story arc to take the Spawn comic book and how does it fit into the overall story and mythology of those past issues?

TM: In the big mythology, it becomes sort of the next step in trying to neutralize the two big forces that have always been in the book which are Heaven and Hell. And again, the idea behind it has always been this man put in between these colossal forces. And is there a way for man to come out on top and not be beholden to any force? If you read the book, I’ve not made it a “good versus evil” in the classic sense of it and so we’ve said in the book and when people have asked, that in this mythology, Heaven and Hell are essentially the same thing; it’s just one guy has a better PR firm. But they both want the same thing: the souls and domination and to annihilate the other guy.

Which is why Spawn has not necessarily been about breaking away from Hell to go work for Heaven; he just wants to break away from it all and be a free man, pushing towards that big concept.
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Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment is reaching into its vault for more anniversary editions.  Coming February 9, Oliver & Company will be available in a two-disc special edition. Overlooked by the snash success of The Little Mermaid, this was really the beginning of a new cycle of animation when things dramatically improved for the studio.  Based on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, the vocal cast of Billy Joel and Bette Midler signaled new times for the studio.

Oliver will come with a behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of the movie, as well as the classic Disney short “Lend a Paw,” a look back at other animal characters in Disney films, and more. Suggested retail price for the DVD is $29.99.

BONUS FEATURES

Games & Activities
• All-New Game

Backstage Disney
• The Making of Oliver & Company
• Puss Café – A delightful animated short starring Disney favorite Pluto and friends
• The History of Animals in Disney Films – A Disney animated featurette
• Return of a Classic – A look at the 1996 theatrical re-release of Oliver & Company

Bonus Short
• Lend a Paw— Pluto rescues a kitten and saves the day in an Academy Award® (1941 Short Subject -Cartoon) winning animated short. 

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R-E-S-P-E-C-T / Find out what it means to me / R-E-S-P-E-C-T / Take care, TCB

When Otis Redding wrote that song back in 1965, I doubt he could foresee its impact on our culture. Everybody related to its sentiments, and today it’s common do see the word used as a major bone of contention in virtually all types of disputes, from labor negotiations to street gang antics. It makes sense. We all want to be respected for who we are and what we do.

Over the past couple years the comic book medium has started to receive its proper respect – but comic book fans have not. Matt Groening’s Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons is breathtakingly clever, but we forget that the guy is also a member of Mensa. I only know a few comic book fans that actually look like CBG, myself included, but a good many of those were Mensa members. One even dated Marilu Henner; sadly, that wasn’t me.

Mensa members deserve respect as well. They’re nerds; they don’t get respect. The only nerds that get respect are rich computer wizards, with the emphasis on rich. Wealth gets respect, and therefore I assume there’s a lot less respect going around this month than there was last month.

That shrine to our popular culture, the San Diego Comic-Con, is astonishingly successful. It pumps millions and millions of dollars into the local economy – a sum further enhanced by the several successful comic book publishers in the area – yet San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders felt it save to piss all over the comic fans last year. “We’ve put up with the superheroes and now we’re on to the people with actual talent,” Mayor Ungrateful Jerk said. What an ass. I guess he knew the Comic-Con was locked into a contract for several more years. (more…)

Terence Howard was interviewed on NPR recently and he addressed, for the first time, his removal from Iron Man 2.

"It was the surprise of a lifetime," he said. "There was no explanation. [The contract] just…up and vanished. I read something in the trades implicating that it was about money or something, but apparently the contracts that we write and sign aren’t worth the paper that they’re printed on, sometimes. Promises aren’t kept, and good faith negotiations aren’t always held up."

Maybe it’s something personal.  Maybe it’s something professional.  Or maybe we’ll never know but it sounds pretty darn final to us.