Meet and greet the best talent online and on paper! Here’s the schedule for artists signings at Booth #2308 — ComicMix and Insight Studios. Please stop by and say hello!
THURSDAY, July 24
10 AM – Noon
Jerry Carr (Cryptozoo Crew)
Noon — 2 PM
Rick Marshall (ComicMix News)
2 PM – 4 PM
Mike Gold (ComicMIx Editor-in-Chief)
4 PM – 6 PM
Alan Gross (Cryptozoo Crew)
DC Comics’ boring old Web site saw a big relaunch over the weekend, perhaps coinciding with the record-breaking debut of The Dark Knight film.
Not a ton of new features on the site, which you can view right here, but it’s a whole lot prettier than the previous incarnation.
There is a nice feature called "30 Essential," which lists 30 of what DC views as it’s can’t miss graphic novels. That’s sure to be useful for new readers, though it’s old ground for long-time readers.
You can find that feature right here.
Time Magazine recently turned the spotlight on a sport that’s worth noting here for two reasons: First, it sounds so bizarre that it could have been ripped off the pages of a comic book; and second, it was pulled from the pages of a comic book.
Welcome to the world of "Chess Boxing," folks.
The chess-boxing combo traces its roots back to a 1992 comic book, titled The Nikopol Trilogy, in which the men of the future box on a chessboard floor. The image inspired Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh to hold — and compete in — the first official chess-boxing bout in Amsterdam in 2003.
According to Time, chess-boxing competitors "alternate between three-minute rounds of boxing and four-minute rounds of speed chess, with one-minute breaks in between to get the gloves off and hunker down at the chess table." Victories are earned via knockouts, checkmates, or referee decisions.
The current Chess Boxing champion is a19-year-old Russian math student — which makes it that much more interesting, as far as I’m concerned.
As all interested parties get ready for this week’s Comic-Con International, a couple other municipalities are preparing to try to wrest the massive convention away from its historic home in San Diego.
Both Los Angeles and Las Vegas have their eye on Comic-Con, according to Variety. The event’s extreme growth has been a boon, but San Diego can’t handle the demand anymore, Comic-Con marketing director David Glanzer said.
That means Comic-Con may have to embrace the marketing mayhem that became a fixture of E3 before it downsized a year ago. So, even with the convention locked into San Diego for the next four years, cities such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles are actively trying to lure Comic-Con away.
"We don’t like to go in and infringe on other people’s leases when they are in the middle of doing business," says Chris Meyer, VP of convention sales for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau. Nevertheless, he admits, "We will be down in Comic-Con 2008 to have some discussions."
The way he sees it, Las Vegas has some dramatic advantages, including twice the floor space and a surplus of competitively priced hotel rooms. Meyers notes, "I’ve got more rooms on my corners than they do in most of their downtown area."
After setting box office records for top midnight opening and top Friday sales, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that The Dark Knight broke the weekend record set by Spider-Man 3.
Sunday’s tallies showed The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, hauled in $155.34 million for the weekend, according to the Associated Press. That tops Spider-Man 3 and its $151.1 million take.
The new Batman also bested Spidey’s IMAX debut, $6.2 million to $4.7 million.
The opening day grosses for "The Dark Knight" far exceeded the full weekend haul of its predecessor, "Batman Begins
," which took in $48.7 million in its first three days in 2005. …
"We’ve really never seen anything like this," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "The death of a fine actor taken in his prime, a legendary performance and a movie that lives up to all the hype. That all combined to create these record-breaking numbers."
I finally caught a showing Saturday morning, which still nearly sold out. That might be the most applause I’ve heard at a theater yet, with the most coming somewhat surprisingly for Jim Gordon.
—
From Glenn H.
Media By Numbers’ OFFICIAL DARK KNIGHT RECORDS SO FAR (in order of occurrence):
1 – Largest Number Of Opening Theatres with 4,366 (More Than The 4,362 Debut Theatres Of Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End
2 – Biggest Midnight Preview Gross with $18.489 million in 3,040 Theatres (Beats Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith
3 – Biggest Imax Midnight Previews set a new record with $640,000 (Included in The $18.489 million Preview Number).
4 – Biggest Single-Day Gross in Box-Office History with $67.850 million (Bests The $59,841,919 set by Spider-Man 3
5 – Biggest Opening Weekend Gross in Box Office History with $155.340 million (Bests The $151,116 million set by Spider-Man 3 in 2007).
6 – Biggest Opening Weekend Gross For An Imax Release in Box Office History with $6,214,061 million in 94 Theatres With $66,107 Per Theatre. (Bests The $4.7 million set by Spider-Man 3 in 2007.) Imax Showing At Full Capacity $1.9 million On Saturday Alone.
7 – Biggest Opening Weekend Of 2008 with $151.340 (Beats Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
8 – Biggest July Opening Ever (Beats Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Previously on ComicMix, I brought you the first part of my interview with writer, actor and publisher Wil Wheaton. In that part, we discussed topics including his feelings about modern comics and comic-book movies, his acting career, his love of writing and, most importantly, what he likes to order for lunch.
In the second part of my interview, we spend a bit more time discussing the craft of writing, personal publishing, his preferences in technology and the sometimes unpredictable nature of an Internet audience.
COMICMIX: Let’s change gears for a minute, Wil. You’re a pretty well-respected technology guy, and I know you’re a Mac user. How long has that been going on?
WIL WHEATON: I was one of the earliest Mac adopters. I had a Mac 128K in the first few months of its release. I loved it. I wish I could find, I key-noted at Mac World a few years ago, and both my notes and my address are gone. I don’t know where they went.
Ironically, I wrote them on a Linux machine and I think that I may have just inadvertently lost them. But I loved that computer. It was portable, which is funny to say now, because it only weighed like, 20-30 pounds. It had a handle on the top, so clearly, it was portable.
CMix: Did you ever have a clone?
WW: No. I wouldn’t consider myself a Mac cultist or an Apple cultist. There’s still stuff they do that I don’t like and I don’t really have brand loyalty. I have brand anti-loyalty, though. I’ll never buy a Sony product… ever.
Here’s what I don’t like about politicians.
Well, actually, even Bill Gates doesn’t have the bandwidth to list all the things I don’t like about politicians – although I’m sure listing it all would generate some great comments. But here’s what’s at the top of my list.
Politicians who are partisan by definition feel completely comfortable speaking on behalf of the entire American public. Not just those of their political persuasion – which would be presumptuous – but everybody. Which is anti-democratic and pro-demagoguery.
Case in point: The Obama campaign felt compelled to issue a statement regarding cartoonist Barry Blitt’s cover to last week’s New Yorker magazine. The artwork speaks for itself, and is represented herewith. Entitled “The Politics of Fear,” the piece is supposed to be a satire of, well, the politics of fear as applied against the Obama campaign.
But the Obama campaign believes we’re too stupid to get it and feels compelled to pass moral judgment on behalf of us dolts. Their spokesman Bill Burton said “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”
Never on to miss an opportunity to stick their right-wing noses in the air, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds rose to the challenge with “We completely agree with the Obama campaign. It’s tasteless and offensive.”
With Dark Knight blowing all other movie premieres out of the water, comics continue to be front and center in the public consciousness. What better way to celebrate that than being a part of the hottest ticket around? ComicMix contributors will be at San Diego (headquartered at Insight Studios’ booth #3208) along with many of you; stop by and say hi to many of the luminaries listed below! Here’s what we’ve had for you this past week:
Have a great time out west, everyone who’s going!
Vertigo junkies will be happy to know a group of the DC imprint’s creators have joined together — not unlike Voltron — on a blog.
Standard Attrition is the new blogging home for Jason Aaron, Brian Wood, G. Willow Wilson, Jock, Cliff Chiang, David Lapham and Brian Azzarello.
So far, the site has mostly just news on the group’s individual projects and media appearances. There’s also some news about what they’ll be doing at San Diego this coming week.
If you’re curious, that’s the cover to Wilson’s Air, which debuts from Vertigo next month.
(via The Beat)
What do you do when you desperately want to make a Batman movie, except you have little film-making experience and Warner Bros. doesn’t know you exist?
Well, you just go right ahead and make a Batman movie. At least that’s the thought of Jerry Vasilatos, a Chicago director. He decided to create The Dark Knight Project, essentially a fan movie set between the two new Batman films.
The story follows some Gotham students who try to get video footage of their city’s new vigilante. The expected trouble ensues, as Joker’s gang starts to cause problems.
You can watch the film right here. You can also read quite a bit on the background of the project at Vasilatos’ blog, which is right here.
That "other" Batman movie opened this weekend.
(via Doomkopf)
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