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Review: ‘After 9/11’ by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón

97808090237071-8612528A few years back, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón came up with the novel idea of retelling the 9/11 Commission Report in comic book form.

Now they’re back with something of a sequel, After 9/11: America’s War on Terror (Hill and Wang, $16.95). While their earlier book was a simple recreation of an existing document, this is a more impressive endeavor, as they compile facts from a great number of sources to create one of the most encompassing yet looks at our ongoing wars.

I really only have one criticism. The book is labeled “graphic journalism,” which is a bit of a misnomer. The creators did no original reporting, as far as I can tell, instead researching media reports for their information.

It’s really an illustrated work of history, an encompassing paper-bound documentary of the past seven years in American foreign policy. Which is to say it’s a pretty depressing read.

The creators organize their collection of news reports and government documents in chronological form, as the U.S. launches its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter through no small part of deception.

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Unscripted, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • August 13, 2008

Last weekend, New York City had its annual Del Close marathon. I’m sure our esteemed editor Mike Gold and my fellow columnist John Ostrander were somewhere about, if only in spirit. I was home doing housework, lounging about and occasionally glancing at the Olympics. Which can be tough, by the way, if you’ve got a female gaze. I do wish the men’s and women’s sports getups bore a bit more resemblance to each other, kinda like the outfits most of the countries wore during the Parade of Nations.

But instead we have women’s volleyball team uniforms, for both the indoor and beach variety, that consist of either porn-movie short-shorts or bikini bottoms, while the guys get to wear nice loose regulation exercise-type shorts. I cry unfair! Butt shot after butt shot, and the only time my prurient interest is slightly catered to is when it rains and the boys’ clothes start to lovingly cling to them… er. Ahem. Where was I? Oh yeah, and what’s with the creepy male coaches for all the women’s teams? In this day and age that’s as unseemly as me drooling over young nubile volleyball-playing boys… Uh. Well.

So, I’ve been sitting here improv’ing on my computer keyboard. I do that a lot. Maybe it’s the writer’s version of riffing on a jazz tune. Or was that reefering? I’m so not hep. Robin says our marriage sometimes feels like a never-ending improv routine. I think the best marriages ought to be like that, with two well-matched partners constantly playing off each other. Of course, as accident-prone as I am, I could wish my particular situation involved more wit and less slapstick, but there you are. (more…)

Review: ‘Astro City: Dark Age’ by Kurt Busiek

9383_400x600-6430301Kurt Busiek’s brain is about average-sized, I assume. And yet it contains this entire city, detailed down to every last resident’s personality and scrap of trash in the street.

His mastery of [[[Astro City]]] is on full display in the latest collection of the WildStorm series, The Dark Age ($29.99). Busiek ventures back to the not-so-pleasant past to tell the story of two brothers who go on very different paths amidst the chaos of superheroes and villains.

We’ve seen plenty of examples of superhero stories told in a down-to-earth way, or viewed from the average man’s perspective, maybe most notably in Busiek’s acclaimed [[[Marvels]]] with Alex Ross (who provides the killer cover at right). Neither of those elements is what sets Astro City apart, though they fuel its success.

Rather, its the depth to which Busiek explores the brothers’ lives (and those of everyone else). Charles and Royal Williams go through childhood tragedy and end up on opposite ends of the law.

Each is plagued in his own way by the super-powered element, with the bombastic battles tearing Astro City apart.

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ReVamp Vampirella and Win!

  • News
  • August 12, 2008

vampirella19zx0-00-3204157This is pretty much the contest that defines the term "revamp," folks. Harris Comics and the Project: Rooftop crew are looking for aspiring artists to redesign the buxom bombshell Vampirella and win a variety of prizes provided by the Vampirella publisher. Vampirella is celebrating her 40th anniversary next year (not bad for a 40-something, eh?) and interested artists can win the following:

Grand Prize (1) –
The winning entry will appear as a pinup in a future issue of Vampirella, and receive two comics signed respectively by Joe Jusko and Dan Brereton.

Second Prize (1) –
A Vampirella wall poster illustrated by Jose Gonzalez, and receive two comics signed respectively by Joe Jusko and Dan Brereton.

Third Prize (1) –
A Vampirella T-shirt illustrated by Stephen Segovia, and receive two comics signed respectively by Joe Jusko and Dan Brereton.

In addition to these prizes, the finalists selected by the judges will also be up on a fan poll at Vampirella.com for the "Fan Selection" prize of a limited edition Vampirella print.

The judges for the contest are a trio of notable Vampirella names, including original Vampirella costume designer Trina Robbins, frequent series artist Joe Jusko and upcoming Vampirella Quarterly artist Dan Brereton. Send in your submissions to projectrooftop@gmail.com, with the subject line: "ReVamp" — and keep your fingers crossed.

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Maximum Ride To Movies And Manga

  • Uncategorized
  • August 12, 2008

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Look for the adventures of Max, Angel, Fang, Iggy and the rest of the flock to hit the big screen in 2010 as Columbia Pictures acquires the rights to James Patterson wildy successful young adult series, Maximum Ride. Steering the transition is producer Avi Arad, no stranger to the genre coming off Marvel films such as Spider-Man, X-Men and Iron Man.

The Maximum Ride stories are spun-off from characters from two of James Patterson’s successful his adult novels, When the Wind Blows and The Lakehouse. These human/avian hybrids, which have been genetically engineered are all close to their teens, and not too dissimilar from the basic elements that are the core of the original X-Men. There are currently four Maximum Ride titles in print: The Angel Experiment, School’s Out Forever, Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports and The Final Warning. Book Five, Waterwings, is scheduled to hit shelves in March 2009.

Starting next year, there will also be a series of Maximum Ride graphic novels in manga form from Yen Press. A 22 page preview was released earlier this year on Free Comic Book Day.

When ComicMix met James Patterson in 2007, we asked him how long he planned for the series to last, Patterson told us that he would "keep going (with series) until (the characters) don’t have anything else to do." Patterson is also strongly involved in efforts to get children reading; you can see his latest efforts here.

 

 

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ComicMix Radio: Rating The Dark Knight

dark-knight-ny-times1-4531813The controversy over just who should see The Dark Knight heats up in the UK, while over here we hide out at the comic shop among a stack of great new trades out this week, plus:

  • Sony fast tracks Flash Gordon
  • Ted McKeever gets collected
  • Devils Due’s Josh Blaylock introduces us to Mercy Sparx

And here at ComicMix Radio we believe if you are old enough to Press the Button then you are old enough to listen!

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-1755772 or RSS!

 

 

EZ Street trailer from San Diego

A lot of folks asked about the trailer we were showing at the booth at San Diego for EZ Street, so we’re posting it for everyone who couldn’t make it this year– or who couldn’t hear it over the crowds.

This is also a good place to remind people that EZ Street is nominated for the Harvey Awards this year, and that the deadline is this Friday. So if you’re a comics pro who’s eligible to vote and hasn’t yet, we’d like to remind you to vote and to keep EZ Street in mind when filling out your ballot.

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Review: ‘Scout, Vol. 2’ by Timothy Truman

scout2-5451664Scout, Volume Two
By Timothy Truman
Dynamite Entertainment, July 2008, $19.95

This, as you might have guessed from the title of the book, is the second collection of Tim Truman’s [[[Scout]]] series, originally published over twenty-four issues starting in 1987 from Eclipse Comics. (You young ‘uns won’t know from Eclipse, but they were one of the major “indy” comics companies, back before anybody used that term.) The first Scout collection came out last year, and I reviewed it then.

To recap: Scout is set in a world of the worst fears of mid-‘80s liberals: global warming ran riot, turning most of the US into a desert; the US government collapsed into corporate fascism; the US economy basically dried up and blew away; and everything generally went to hell. It also went to hell really, really quickly, since Scout starts in 1999, only twelve years after it was originally published. By the beginning of this volume – the eighth issue and the start of a new plotline – it’s possibly a year later than that, but everything is still horrible, and getting even worse. (It’s one of those post-apocalypse settings in which regular people, like you and me, seem to have all died off quietly, without even leaving rotting corpses or giant piles of bones behind, so that the tough survivalist types can battle it out over the scarce resources left.)

But Scout’s world is different from our own in other ways: it’s not really a science-fictional world, despite being set in the near future. Various kinds of magic and mysticism really do work, and our hero, former Army Ranger Emanuel Santana, is explicitly on a mission to destroy a series of legendary monsters that are behind the USA’s troubles. (The first storyline was called “[[[The Four Monsters]]];” in that, he tracked down and killed four monsters from Apache mythology, all masquerading as powerful humans. At the beginning of this volume, his spirit guide – a talking prairie dog called Gahn – leads Santana to the next monster, which is a part of him.)

 

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Is Hillary Clinton Really The Thing? By Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • August 12, 2008

I never talked to either Jack Kirby or Stan Lee about politics, so I don’t really have any idea where they stood on the subject. My guess would be that following their political spoor wouldn’t take you very far west and that they didn’t have much sympathy for the hippie-rebels of the 60s (and here allow me to blush and hide my face). After all, they and their parents (and my parents) fought for a place in the American mainstream because, finally, acceptance meant an increased chance of survival and for those outside the tribe, who suffered the Great Depression, not surviving seemed to be a real possibility. Then here came the snotty kids with their tie-dye and their girly haircuts and their wiseass slogans saying that a place in the tribe was not worth struggling for – in fact, the tribe itself was stinking of corruption.

Both generations were, in their own way, right; both had a piece of the truth.

Stan and Jack were – are – of the first of the two generations and so they were – are – probably politically a bit to the right of me and maybe you (and my parent and most of my siblings.) But events of the past week make me guess that their greatest creations were liberals. I refer to the Fantastic Four who, along with Spider-Man co-launched Marvel Comics, as one or two of you might have heard. True FF aficionados know, and perhaps relish, the tendency of the members of this supergroup to squabble among themselves. Two of the four, The Human Torch and The Thing, seem particularly apt to indulge in petty argumentation.

Remind you of any particular political group?

Yeah, right. Liberals. Witness the recent news: Ms. Hillary Clinton’s die-hard supporters are threatening to vote for John McCain, the Republican candidate, unless Ms. Clinton’s presidential aspirations are accorded full acknowledgement at the Democratic convention, which will be soaking up media time in about two weeks. This despite the fact that Ms. Clinton has already lost the nomination to Barack Obama, whose crew must be thinking harsh and uncharitable thoughts about the Clintonites.

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