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Comics Out Of The Closet, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • August 11, 2008

My old pal Joe Staton, one of the most brilliant graphic storytellers in the history of this medium, is currently enjoying a long-overdue exhibition of his work at the Storefront Artist Project in Pittsfield, MA. Peculiarly titled The Art of Joe Staton, it runs through August 31. We talked about this here at ComicMix a while ago; click-through and read to your heart’s content. Better still, go there and check it out.

This could have been the shortest column I’ve ever written, but no, I aim towards broader context. We’re seeing more and more of this sort of thing. Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel’s Breathtaker was among the dozen or so graphic novels recently honored at the Norman Rockwell Museum, and that exhibit is now touring the nation. There have been many theme-based exhibits of comic art all over the country – too many to mention.

Oh, boy. We’ve been accepted as a real art medium. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth (for a change), I just wish this happened a couple decades ago.

Will Eisner and Stan Lee lived long enough to feel the full brunt of public acceptance; Jack Kirby really didn’t. He was honored as the ABC News Man of the Week after he died, but I’m sure that didn’t massage his ego any. Wally Wood got bubkis. The fact is, the first generation of comics creators is almost entirely gone, and most died with a stigma attached to their names. Sure, Stan and Joe Kubert are still around (thankfully) and are still producing stuff (also thankfully), but that’s because they entered this craft while still pre-pubescent. (more…)

ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending August 10, 2008

  • News
  • August 10, 2008

Don’t bother me, I’m watching the ‘lympics.  As if I followed any of these sports at any other time.  We’ve had some good sports here in ComicMix too; here’s a bit of what they’ve done for you this past week:

Now will someone please put some proper shorts on those female volleyball players?

Dark Knight Rules Fourth!

  • News
  • August 10, 2008

The Dark Knight continues to rule the box office as it takes the number one position for the fourth weekend in a row, the first time any 2008 release has achieved this.  Its estimated haul of $26,030,000 pushes its domestic take to $441,541,000, faster than any movie in history.

 

Next week, the movie should surpass Star Wars’ $461,000,000 and become the second highest grossing film in American box office history.  Titanic remains on top of the world with its $600 million record and Warner Bros. suspects Batman will not beat the fabled steamliner.  Instead, they now estimate the film will earn $520 million.

 

Now, adjust everything for inflation and The Dark Knight will wind up not second but 49th while Gone With the Wind remains the biggest film of all with $1.4 billion in 2008 dollars.

 

The stoner comedy Pineapple Express opened in second place with a healthy $22,400,000. Counting ticket sales from Wednesday’s opening, the film already has taken in $40.5 million.

 

In its second weekend Universal’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor dropped 60.2%, taking in just $16,113,000.  With a total of $70,671,000, it chugs along although there has to be some concern that bad word of mouth, poor reviews and steep drop off may mean the franchise is running out of steam despite director Rob Cohen already talking a fourth film.

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ComicMix Radio: Broadcast Blog

  • News
  • August 10, 2008

Let’s take a lazy Sunday and add in a few links and recaps of things you might have missed on this week’s ComicMix Radio:

  • This week Wanted‘s Mark Millar and Ex Machina‘s Tony Harris hit the shores of the United States to promote War Heroes. Starting at  New York’s Midtown Comics and ending on the west coast, fans will have a chance to get to meet Mark and Tony as well as nabbing a copy of the extremely limited War Heroes #1 Tour Of Duty Edition. According to Image Comics, this special edition will never be made available again. By the way, War Heroes #1 has sold out from Image and there is no word yet on a second printing. For the full schedule of the tour, go here.
     
  • On your way out west to follow Mark & Tony, try and work out a stop in Toledo, Ohio tomorrow to see Marvel artist Greg Horn throw out the first pitch in a Toledo Mudhens game. It’s not the usual spot you find someone from our world, but Greg got the chance to do this because  Mudhens’ Assistant General Manager Neil Neukam is a big fan of his work.
     
  • As you read here on ComicMix, Michael I. Silberkleit, the chairman of Archie Comic Publications, died August 5th in New York City at the age of 76, after a short battle with cancer. Keep a close eye here for Arcihe Comics’ official tribute which should be on the site any day now.
     
  • Top Cow has the voting polls for Pilot Season 2008 wide open. If you have been following the series of try-outs, you can  vote for your favorite title out of the six one-shots that were put out this summer. Polling stations are now set up at the Top Cow main site , the Top Cow MySpace page  and the Pilot Season MySpace page. Readers can vote once per day until the polls close on September 8, 2008. Did you know that last year’s top two vote getters, Cyblade and Velocity, will debut with new series later this year, mainly due to the over four million votes were cast.

    We are back on the broadcast on Tuesday with our run down of new comics and DVD releases and more from Torchwood Executive Producer Julie Gardner and series star, Naoko Mori.  And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-1373215 or RSS!

 

hugo2008-1-2963429

2008 Hugo Award winners

  • News
  • August 10, 2008

hugo2008-1-2963429The 2008 Hugo Awards were given out last night at Denvention, this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, a.k.a. WorldCon. The Master of Ceremony was Wil McCarthy. The winners are (cue the drum roll) …

Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins; Fourth Estate)
Novella: "All Seated on the Ground" by Connie Willis (Asimov’s Dec. 2007; Subterranean Press)
Novelette: "The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate" by Ted Chiang (Subterranean Press; F&SF Sept. 2007)
Short Story: "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s June 2007)
Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Stardust Written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman Illustrated by Charles Vess Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Paramount Pictures)
Dramatic Presentation, Short Form Doctor Who "Blink" Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
Professional Editor, Short Form: Gordon Van Gelder (F&SF)
Professional Artist: Stephan Martiniere
Semiprozine: Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
Fanzine: File 770
Fan Writer: John Scalzi
Fan Artist: Brad Foster
Campbell Award: Mary Robinette Kowal
 
Full list of nominated works after the jump.

 

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Hey! Where is our ‘Dark Knight’ Video Game?

  • News
  • August 10, 2008

Since the birth of Tim Burton’s movie Batman in 1989, there has been a video game tie-in with every incarnation of the Batman film franchise. So why is it that we haven’t seen one for one of the most popular (and profitable) films for the character, if not for comic book films in general? It’s not as if there wasn’t a plan for a digitized Batman during the film’s production. Game publisher Electronic Arts had the rights to make a game for the Dark Knight film, according to an unnamed developer for the EA-owned Pandemic Studios. Speculation says that the lack of a game caused up to $100 million in missing sales, and would be the first time that the caped crusader didn’t have a game.

 
Speculation ranges from missing deadlines to Heath Ledger’s death, and even to the fear of success due to the poor quality of the last tie-in game with Batman Begins. Sales of movie-based games often parallel their box-office brethren. Last year’s Transformers games sold 2.6 million copies while the Spider-Man III games sold 2.1 million, according to sales data from NPD Group market research analyst Anita Frazier. Even the Iron Man games have sold 697,000 units following their release at the same time as the film in May.
 
If a Dark Knight game is still in the works, Batman could take a cue from Superman. Because of delays, the EA console games based on 2006’s Superman Returns didn’t take flight until the DVD release — and only then sold 705,000 copies. However, a Dark Knight game isn’t on EA’s release slate through March 2009, according an EA press release.
 
This is all not to say that there will be a shortage of Batman and his foes in the world of video games. You can catch them all on your console in September for Warner’s Lego Batman: The Video Game, then in November for Midway’s Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, and finally later this year for Sony’s DC Universe Online.

Review: Creepy Archives Volume 1

Pretty soon, this is going to turn into a review of Dark Horse’s [[[Creepy Archives Volume 1]]]. Hang in there; I’ll get to it, I promise.

I miss Archie Goodwin, particularly this time of year. He died 10 years ago from cancer at the ridiculously young age of 60. He was one of the best writers this medium has ever seen. In a field that sports the talents of Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner, Jules Feiffer, and Dennis O’Neil, Archie was of that highest caliber. If Archie ghosted bible tracks for Jack Chick, I would have read them. He was that good.

As a human being, he was even better. A life-long EC Comics fan (you could see it in his work, as well as in those with whom he chose to associate), for a couple years Archie and I had adjoining offices at DC Comics. We used to go out to lunch and talk about, oh, [[[Tales From The Crypt]]] and Ronald Reagan. Did I mention Archie was very politically aware? Read his [[[Blazing Combat]]] stories. Anyway, sometimes our conversations scared the Manhattan businessmen who sat near us.

Archie enjoyed that. I enjoyed those conversations immensely; I wish I could relive them.

So why do miss Archie “particularly this time of year”? This is convention season. No matter where we were, we would run into each other a couple times each year at various airport gates. He could be leaving from New York and I from Chicago and we’d run into each other on connecting flights in Denver. We could both be at a show in, oh, his native Kansas City and we could be flying to two different places, but we’d still share the first leg of our respective flights. At first it was uncanny; quickly, it became another fact of life.

I haven’t met all 6,500,000,000 people on this planet, but based upon my unscientific sampling I can state with complete confidence that there are few people with greater wit, charm, and intelligence. So there.

This brings us to Dark Horse’s Creepy Archives Volume 1. Archie started writing for Jim Warren’s Creepy with the first issue; by issue two he was story editor and issue four he was the sole credited editor. He wrote most of the stories and, therefore, did a lot to define the 1960s horror story while working with a lot of EC greats like Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, Al Williamson, Alex Toth, George Evans, Joe Orlando, Wally Wood and Frank Frazetta. As time progressed, he added younger talent like Gray Morrow, Neal Adams, and Steve Ditko.

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ComicMix Radio: Torchwood Series Three Less Is More

  • News
  • August 9, 2008

Our exclusive talk with the creative minds at BBC Television continues with Julie Gardner, executive producer of all things Doctor Who as she talks about her next career move and the reasoning behind next years shortened season for Torchwood, plus:

  • William Katt and Robert Culp share feelings on the return of The Greatest American Hero
  • Mark Millar hits the road this week for War Heroes
  • Sold Out books and shipping changes are updated all nice and neat for you

And for another Torchwood scoop, check out this earlier article. Meanwhile, there is lots to cover here so buckle up and Press the Button!

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-2306016 or RSS!

 

Adams, Kubert and Lee Come To Aid Of Concentration Camp Artist

  • News
  • August 9, 2008

 

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The perfect trifecta of living comic book legends –  Neal Adams, Joe Kubert, and Stan Lee – have come to the aid of Nazi concentration camp survivor and animator Dina Gottlieboa Babbit in her fight to retrieve her long stolen artwork from a Polish museum.

According to today’s New York Times, Ms. Babbit survived two years at the infamous Auschwitz Polish concentration camp by painting watercolor portraits for the notorious butcher of Aushwitz, Dr. Josef Mengele. Many of these paintings are in the possession of the Aushwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum; as her work, Ms. Babbit claims ownership and has long demanded its return. The Museum has refused, and Neal, Joe and Stan have taken up the effort.

To help raise awareness, Neal teamed up with Rafael Medoff, the director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, to produce a six page comics story detailing the situation. The story was inked – in part – by Joe and sports an introduction from Stan. 

They are presently looking for a publisher.

Since her liberation, Ms. Babbit had worked as an animator for Jay Ward Productions, Warner Bros. Animation, and MGM.

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