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‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 6’ Coming in October

  • News
  • September 2, 2008

looneytunes-gcv6-final-1-3305514Warner Home Video has announced a sixth DVD box set in their Looney Tunes Golden Collection series.  The new set will be released on October 21 with 60 classic, fully re-mastered and restored cartoons, presented in their original un-edited format. Most of the shorts in the collection have never been available on DVD before.

Retailing for $64.92, the set will feature a disc dedicated to Bosko, Buddy and Merrie Melodies while the bonus features includes a never-before-seen documentary on voice genius Mel Blanc.

A smaller Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volume Six will also be released that day with material drawn from both Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six and Volume Two for $26.99.
 

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Alaska Names Cartoon Laureate

  • News
  • September 2, 2008

Suddenly, there’s a lot of news coming out of Alaska.  In addition to the state’s governor being nominated as the Republican candidate for Vice President, cartoonist Chad Carpenter was named Alaska’s Cartoon Laureate last week. State representative Wes Keller began campaigning for the designation back in February, according to the Daily Cartoonist. 

Carpenter has been drawing Tundra for a dozen years now and as a thirty year resident of Alaska, knows something about the environment. He was encouraged to get into comic strips by Dik Browne and Mike Peters and has managed to grow his strip into a mini-empire with not only the strip but four strip collections, t-shirt designs, note cards, mouse pads, bumper stickers, and an interactive CD-ROM.

Keller said at the time, “Chad is one of my most famous constituents. I love his humor and success, and I was happy to ask my fellow legislators to support and co-sponsor this citation recognizing and honoring the work and goodwill he has accomplished for Alaska during his successful run of Tundra. His ability to export Alaska grown is a true example of what you can do when you put your mind to it.”

On May 24, Carpenter was given the Reuben Award for Best Newspaper Panel, crediting Carpenter’s success as a self-syndicated cartoonist with over 200 newspapers carrying Tundra.

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John Cassaday Named GOH at WizardWorld Texas

  • Uncategorized
  • September 1, 2008

ww-texas-logo-1-3233822WizardWorld Texas, to be held at the Arlington Convention Center November 7-9, has named John Cassady its Guest of Honor. Cassady, currently drawing The Lone Ranger for Dynamite Entertainment, has made his name on titles including Astonishing X-Men and Planetary.

Additional guests named include Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets), Christos Gage (Avengers: The Initiative), Marc Guggenheim (Amazing Spider-Man), Phil Hester (Broken Trinity: The Darkness), Max Brooks (World War Z), Lee Bermejo (Hellblazer), Mitch Breitweiser (Captain America: The Chosen), Jacen Burrows (Crossed), Frank Cho (Jungle Girl), Shane Davis (Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns), Paul Duffield (FreakAngels), Marko Djurdjevic (Mighty Avengers) and Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night).

The convention has also announced the formation of Wizard World University, an academic track of programming was created alongside the Institute for Comics Studies (ICS). Wizard has announced the Institute for Comics Studies is currently accepting proposals through September 22 for presentations, book talks, side talks, roundtables, professional-focus discussion panels, workshops and other panels.

The academics behind this new track include Dr. Travis Langley from Henderson State University and Dr. Peter Coogan, Director, Institute for Comics Studies.
 

Turning Comics Into Manga, By Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • September 1, 2008

If you’re a student, or a teacher, you may not be reading this when Mike Gold posts it. Unless there’s a glitch he’ll be doing digital voodoo-hoodoo that I don’t understand – me and Johnny Mac, Luddites and proud of it – and making these words available to interested parties, if any, on Tuesday morning. The reason you’re not reading this on Tuesday morning, if you’re a teacher or student, may be that you’re in school and presumably putting your laptop to other uses. (I didn’t say “better.” I said other. Let’s not be judgmental.) Here in Rockland County New York, school begins early this year and unless the unforeseen happens, Marifran is, on the Tuesday-to-come, down the hill, beginning her forty-seventh year of teaching and I’m… oh, eating breakfast. Reading the paper. Sleeping. Something. I hope Mari didn’t wake me when she left.

For comics professionals, these fine, crisp September days are often a lull – an easy interval between the frantic, convention-going days of summer and the rush to finish and get to press the upscale books that publishers hope will be under a whole lot of trees on Christmas morning. Not much happening. The only items of interest that have come to my attention recently are the demise of one of the new comics publishers and Marvel’s announcement that it will tailor its superheroes for the Japanese market.

That market has been something of an enigma. The Japanese are, as a nation, the world’s largest comics consumers and have been for decades. Why? One theory is that experiencing narrative through the medium of pictures is natural to many Asians because their written language is pictorial – it may have begun as actual drawings and has evolved into a series of highly stylized glyphs. Neither a new idea, nor one restricted to comics: the great Russian director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein offered a similar explanation for Asia’s quick adoption of movies.

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‘Jonah Hex’ Begins Shooting in March

  • News
  • September 1, 2008

Warner Bros. has given a green light to a Jonah Hex script from Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank).  "Pre-production will begin January 2009 before principal photography gets underway in March 2009 in either Louisiana, Georgia or Arizona,” the producers told Movie Blog. 

Actor Thomas Jane had himself done up to show what the Hex makeup could look like and essentially was begging to be cast in the title role. The directors have rejected Jane, despite being impressed by his efforts.  No casting has been announced for any of the roles nor has a story synopsis been revealed. The movie, though, is pencilled in by Warner Bros. for a 2010 release.

The antihero, created back in 1972 by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga, is one of the best characters published by DC Comics. Hex reached his creative heyday under writer Michael Fleisher during a long run from the 1970s through the 1980s.  Currently he is enjoyed renewed popularity through the monthly now written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, working with a variety of noteworthy artists. 

Batman Breaks $500 Million Barrier

  • News
  • September 1, 2008

The summer box office ended anemically although The Dark Knight did as expected, and sailed past the $500 million domestic box office mark.  By doing so in just 45 days puts it on a faster pace than the #1 champ, Titanic. With $11 million for the four-day weekend, the film stands at $504,696,000. Add in the $416,700,000 from foreign receipts and the film has earned Warner Bros. $919,121,000 (this despite our report that it’s tanking in Japan).

Warner Bros. has recently revised their estimate of the film’s final domestic number to $530 million, down from the $550 million it announced in mid-August. On the other hand, adjusted for inflation, the film rises from 49th on the All-Time chart to 30th as of this weekend and will likely climb a little higher before all is said and done. Not bad for a sequel to a super-hero movie.

To put this into additional perspective, The Dark Knight alone will account for almost one-eighth of the summer box office, which saw dozens of films open and many turned out to underperform. The summer b.o. is anticipated to close today with $4.2 billion in ticket sales.

Tropic Thunder remained atop the weekend chart in its third week of release, locating some $83.8 million along the way. Right behind it was the opening weekend for Babylon A.D. which was savaged by its director and the critics but still took in $9.7 million.  The better-reviewed Traitor, with Don Cheadle, opened in fifth place, taking in just $7.9 million.

Comedy had a tough summer as veterans Mike Meyers and Eddie Murphy crashed and burned and even inexpensive spoofs like the just opened Disaster Movie and the beer-soaked College opened poorly. Thunder and Pineapple Express were the exceptions, showing a shifting taste in theatrical comedies.

If any studio suffered, it was 20th-Century Fox which misfired with Meet Dave, Space Chimps, The Rocker, Mirrors, and most notably X-Files: I Want To Believe.
 

‘Simpsons’ Season 11 Box Set Due in October

  • News
  • September 1, 2008

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced the box set of the eleventh season of The Simpsons will be unveiled on DVD on October 7.

In addition to the stellar cast, the eleventh season of the seminal series featured guest voices Mel Gibson, Lucy Lawless, Kid Rock, Dick Clark, Tim Robbins, John Goodman, Parker Posey, Don Cheadle, Ron Howard, Willie Nelson, and Britney Spears.

The Simpsons The Complete Eleventh Season will feature a special Krusty The Clown themed box that  is promised to contain a surprise insert for the die hard fan.  The DVD collection will be available for the suggested retail price of $49.98 U.S./$69.98 Canada. (more…)

‘Smallville’ Season 8 Preview

  • News
  • September 1, 2008

Kristin Dos Santos at E!online provided fans of Smallville with a ton of information regarding the eight and final season of the CW series.  It returns to the air in September and leaves the farm community further behind as the action seems to be concentrated more and more on the Daily Planet in nearby Metropolis.

Darren Swimmer, one of the four executive producers trying to replace Alfred Gough and Miles Miller, explained, "[Clark]’s going to be seeking out the trouble, as opposed to reacting to trouble when it happens. One of his main motivations for going to the Daily Planet was to be somewhere where the information comes in."

As a result, not only does Clark now work at the DP, but Lois Lane (Erica Durance) and Jimmy Olsen (Aaron Ashmore) continue their employment.  In a nice twist, it’s Jimmy, not Lois, who starts to suspect Clark may be more powerful than a locomotive.  It’s his snooping around that makes Clark start to consider the need for a secret identity.

Lois and Clark meantime begin to see each other in a new light, as a maturing Clark recognizes it may be time to put his romance with Lana Lang behind him. "Erica Durance and Tom have such a great chemistry on camera together as Lois and Clark,” Swimmer noted. “I just love seeing the dailies. They’re going to be butting heads a lot, as usual. They’ll be teaming up on stories and getting into the typical hijinks together."
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Getting Screwed, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • September 1, 2008

We’re all familiar with the story of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. They created Superman but nobody would buy it so it sat in a drawer for a few years until an editor remembered seeing the submission and thought it would fill out the first issue of a new title that was lacking a lead story. Siegel and Shuster signed away their rights for something slightly in excess of a hundred bucks, although over the next decade they earned hundreds of thousands off of the property. The trouble is, the publisher was making millions.

Siegel and Shuster were getting screwed. They raised a stink about it and found themselves out of jobs. Later, after several publishing failures Siegel limped back to the offending publisher to work-for-hire for page-rate; Shuster was blind and couldn’t work for anybody.

Batman co-creator Bob Kane saw what was going on and offered to negotiate a contract that would: a) cover himself financially, b) somehow guarantee him sole creator credit, and c) screw the people who made Batman truly unique, people like co-creator Bill Finger and artists such as Jerry Robinson and Dick Sprang. This scenario was repeated by a number of creators who became publishers or intellectual property owners years and years later.

So the moral standard is rather flexible. That’s business. That’s human nature – most businessmen aren’t all that different from Al Capone, who, in fact, was generally more appreciative of his end-users than he was of his competitors. Now, everybody cooperates benignly, being careful to operate out of a sense of mutual self-interest instead of an actual conspiracy that might constitute anti-trust. We’ve just endured eight years of a government that was totally dedicated to this concept. (more…)

Robert Downey, Jr. Turns Evil

  • Uncategorized
  • September 1, 2008

robert-downey-jr-1-1325559DreamWorks has decided to produce their own animated take on super-heroes with Master Mind.  Entertainment Weekly is now reporting that Robert Downey, Jr. may lend his voice as the lead character, opposite Tina Fey.

According to IMDB, the film is a “satirical take on super-hero movies, in which a notorious villain loses his oomph after he accidentally kills his nemesis.” It will be directed by Cameron Hood and Kyle Jefferson (First Flight) from a script by newcomers Alan J. Schoolcraft and Brent Simons. Ben Stiller’s production company, Red Hour Films, will co-produce with DreamWorks.  Paramount Pictures has this penciled in as a 2010 release.

Downey has previously worked on animated fare, including Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly.

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