Random Video: 1960s Batman Does ‘The Dark Knight’

News
June 25, 2008

When I posted a link to a recent interview with Adam West on the current Batman film franchise, I had no idea that it would generate such a polarized discussion of the campy 1960s series that made West a household name among comics fans.

In the interest of meeting both sides somewhere in the middle, I hereby submit the following video — featuring a mash-up of the trailer for the upcoming Dark Knight film with clips from the ’60s-era Batman television series.

Can’t we all just get along?

Happy Birthday: Clark Kent

News
June 25, 2008

On June 18 (pre-Crisis version), a tiny spaceship crashed in a field outside Smallville, Kansas. Jonathan and Martha Kent happened by and discovered the spaceship—and its black-haired, blue-eyed infant occupant.

They took the baby in and decided to raise him as their own. One week later, on June 25, the adoption was made official and “Clark Kent” was born.

The last son of Krypton would keep that name, and his humble mortal identity, even after he grew up and came into his full powers as the Man of Steel, the mighty Superman.

Review: ‘Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War Vol. 2’

Reviews
June 25, 2008

sinestro2-7811134 This past weekend at Heroes Con, a panel of some of comics’ biggest stars weighed in on collaboration and, eventually, the art of the crossover.

Mostly, that meant griping about the impossible task of tying into a Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. Matt Fraction went so far as to say he opted out of some crossovers because the stress of it would take years off his life. Jimmy Palmiotti essentially acknowledged the failure of DC’s Countdown.

Clearly, it’s not that hard for a big superhero event to careen right off the tracks. Which means we should all pay attention when one works particularly well, as in Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War (Volume 2 is out now in hardcover at $24.99).

The story is simple enough: Sinestro breaks loose and raises the most terrifying army ever seen, including all of DC’s strongest villains except for Darkseid. And the Green Lanterns fight back.

In this second half of the story, we see the classic turning of the tide back in the heroes’ favor, although Geoff Johns and crew add enough wrinkles to make the inevitable victory quite shadowy, if not outright pyrrhic.

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Interview: Mark Wheatley and Robert Tinnell on ‘EZ Street’

News
June 25, 2008

For the last few months, I’ve spotlighted webcomic creators from all around the ‘Net in my weekly interview series here on ComicMix. This time around, I’m staying a bit closer to home and chatting with the creators of EZ Street, the Harvey-nominated webcomic from creators Mark Wheatley and Robert Tinnell, published here at ComicMix, which concluded its 38-issue run last week.

EZ Street first kicked off in October 2007, and promised readers a look inside the lives of two brothers, Scott and Danny Fletcher, who were trying to make a go of it in comics after heading their separate ways earlier in life. One brother had turned his love of the graphic arts into a career in design, while the other decided to try his luck in the film industry. EZ Street chronicled their return into each other’s lives and the ups and downs of collaboration, their personal relationships and the comics scene. Just prior to publication of the final episode of EZ Street, it was announced that Wheatley and Tinnell’s series had been nominated for a Harvey Award in the category of "Best Online Comic" for 2008, joining popular webcomics such as Perry Bible Fellowship, Penny Arcade and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

I spoke with the creative duo about the series’ roots, working in an online medium and Lone Justice, the project that will soon jump from the pages of EZ Street and into a series all its own. Wheatley and Tinnell were also nice enough to provide the cover image for the first issue of Lone Justice. A full-size version of the image is available at the end of the interview.

COMICMIX: In stories like EZ Street, which use the creative process as subject matter and make the comics industry a central part of the plot, readers are often privy to a lot of the creators’ personalities and experiences in the biz. How much of your personalities are in EZ Street? What parts of you and your experiences can readers see in Scott, Danny and their lives?

MARK WHEATLEY: Well, I think we got a lot of the real Mike Oeming, Neil Vokes and Todd Livingston into these pages. But the rest is fiction — fiction that is true in the same way as any story I tell. Everything comes from my own life experience — and in this case, Bob’s life experience. Each of us has either experienced something damn close to what goes on in EZ Street, or we have been close to people who have gone through these moments of glory, loss and redemption. For me, since I’ve been running a comic art studio for over a quarter of a century, I’ve had a lot of close-up views of careers that almost made it, and careers that have self-destructed. There is really no shortage of people who have dreams, and people who lack the resources to follow their dreams, be it the courage, the finances or the support of people who believe in them. So yeah, EZ Street is the result of decades of personal research. That’s why we called it "EZ Street" — it isn’t!

ROBERT TINNELL: I like to think that there’s a lot of all creators present in both of them. As for me personally, I think they represent different elements of my personality as well as some commonalities. There were also instances where I took elements of Mark’s passions and personality and wove those in as well — as did he, of course. At the risk of repeating myself, I do hope we’ve tapped into some universal emotions on the part of creators.

To be more specific, I could — but won’t — name very specific instances of EZ Street that were pretty much word-for-word recreations of real moments. (more…)

‘Dark Knight’ Gamerpics and Theme Free on Xbox LIVE

News
June 25, 2008

I woke up this morning depressed that there’s no videogame based on The Dark Knight coming out around the time of the movie. Luckily, the hope that they’re taking extra time to make a good movie-based game sometime down the road gave me the energy to turn on my system.

Joy!

I turned on my system to find that Warner Bros. marketing executives decided to distribute free Xbox gamerpics and themes to promote the upcoming Batman Begins sequel.

For the unitiated, gamerpics are pictures attached to your Xbox online profile to represent you when playing other gamers. Themes are basically customizable desktop graphics for your game system. On the Xbox LIVE service, there’s a wide selection of both, some for free, some for a price.

Recent superhero themes were based on the Iron Man movie-based game, The Incredible Hulk movie and The Incredible Hulk movie-based game. In an unusual reversal, non-U.S. fans got exclusive Hulk ones that left their American opponents jealous.

Don’t worry PlayStation 3 fans, according to some leaked photos available around the ‘Net, you’ll see a similar system sometime this year.

Hold the Phone, by Elayne Riggs

News
June 25, 2008

I’ve admitted it before, I have no idea how to text message. Oh, I think I understand the basic principle behind texting; it’s like IM’ing using a handheld device, right? Only, I’ve never done it. I’ve sat through television shows that use instant polling via cell phone text devices for viewers to cast pointless votes for their favorite this-and-thats, but it all seemed like so much mysterious, impenetrable jargon. "Text 12345 to 67890"? In what world is this plain English?

In the world of the "late aughts," apparently. By the way, I’ve never used a PDA either, although I’ve "hot-sync’ed" my ex-boss’ Palm Pilot with a PC. Again, I get the principle, but the idea somewhat alarms me. During my recent 6-month job search I saw so many ads for executive assistants that required knowledge of a Blackberry that I was seriously considering taking some sort of tutorial just to familiarize myself with exactly how it worked. As it is, we don’t even have a text messaging plan for our cell phones. Every time I get a text message, which 90% of the time is a spam offer from T-Mobile, we get billed 5 cents. That’s right, they get to spam me and charge me for the privilege. Shouldn’t that be illegal or something to do to customers who have opted out of texting?

I’m still getting used to the idea of the ubiquity of cell phones on the New York City streets. The last time Robin and I visited England, that’s the main thing he noticed about Londoners that hadn’t been present when he lived in the UK, all the folks who had a cell phone practically attached to their ears. I was in the East Village last week, and just from a quick glance around at pedestrian traffic I approximated one of every three people was using a cell phone as they traversed the intersections. (This is something comic book artists, particularly at Marvel as so many of that company’s titles are based in New York City, should note if they’re going to draw a lot of city scenes.)

I have a theory that there are probably fewer cigarette smokers in urban areas now than there were even a few years ago because, if you need one hand free to swing as you walk or to hold a shoulder bag or briefcase, and therefore you leave your other hand the choice between lighting up and dialing up, more people will currently choose their electronic toys to satisfy their oral fixations than the drag on the cancer stick. Plus, if you’re smoking you’re going to be too short of breath to be able to carry on a phone conversation while you walk! (more…)

The Fragile Nature of ‘Geek Cred’

News
June 24, 2008

Beware the power of words, folks. Over at Cinematical, the movie news site’s resident "geek beat" contributor Elisabeth Rappe has taken a comment I left on one of her recent posts and turned it into a full-blown column, titled "The Touchiness of Geek Cred."

In the column, Rappe discusses the Survivor-esque mentality of geekery and the first time she realized that niche-culture gatherings like comic and science-fiction conventions weren’t the friendly grounds she expected them to be. The ever-present drive to cull the herd and create a higher place on the social ladder is in full effect just as much inside the niche cultures as outside, she observes.

For geeks of the feminine persuasion, the environment is even more cut-throat, according to Rappe:

As a female, I find I have to prove myself even more. The first time I went to ComicCon, I fell into a casual conversation with a guy about the comic book movie spin-offs. I mentioned that I really wanted to see the eventual Wolverine, and he sneered: "You just want to see it because you’re a girl, and Hugh Jackman is hot!"

"Hey," I replied tartly. "Wolverine is the best at what he does, and what he does isn’t very nice."

"You know the catchphrase. I take that back."

Well, thanks. This is something a geeky girl runs up against often, and it is useless to fight it. Men can see Catwoman for Halle Berry, girls cannot see 300 for Gerard Butler. Frankly, I do it too. One woman I was friends with joined my online movie community solely to talk about Butler. She was horrified when the fanboys called her on it. But I too was aghast. "You can’t just go in and talk about hot guys – you have to talk about Frank Miller first! You have to prove yourself a geek!"

Head over to Cinematical for the rest of the column.

Rappe’s observations reminded me of a recent post here on ComicMix, in which I mentioned that I have yet to read any of the Harry Potter books and narrowly escaped a nasty tar-and-feathering by readers.

Bob Greenberger on ‘The Essential Batman Encyclopedia’

News
June 24, 2008

I’ve directed you to Tom Spurgeon’s "Sunday Interview" series before, but this time around, the ol’ Comics Reporter has posted a special treat for ComicMix readers. Our very own Bob Greenberger, who most recently interviewed Bob Rozakis about his alternate-history project with Alter Ego and Back Issue magazines here on ComicMix, spoke with Spurgeon about his work on The Essential Batman Encyclopedia.

While Spurgeon and Greenberger chat at length about many interesting aspects of the Batman project that’s currently being hyped heavily in the lead-up to the release of The Dark Knight, I’ll admit that Greenberger’s discussion of life at the Weekly World News office was one of my favorite elements of the interview.

SPURGEON: I’ve always wanted to ask someone who worked there — what was your Weekly World News experience like?

GREENBERGER: Wild and chaotic and even more seat-of-your pants than Marvel under Bill Jemas. Our editor-in-chief Jeff Rovin would have us shoehorn in new stories the day before we were due on press. Our publishers sometimes changed their minds and wanted an entirely new cover story produced in two or three days. Yet, we got it down to a system where four of managed to edit, proof, layout and design the 48-pages every week without break too much of a sweat. The articles and columns rolled in, got scheduled and printed and we never had to stay late — okay, maybe once or twice. We were all incredibly optimistic at the newspaper fortunes as licensing deals were getting signed and we were reshaping the magazine for new audiences and then we got canceled, largely because I don’t think AMI ever understood the value of the brand until the week the news broke. It was an incredible delight and a heck of a lot of fun.

Head over to The Comics Reporter for the full interview.

On a side note, one has to wonder if Greenberger has ever tired of writing "Bat Boy" stories.

Review: ‘Maps and Legends’ by Michael Chabon

Reviews
June 24, 2008

mapslegends2-9137528 Maps and Legends
By Michael Chabon
McSweeney’s Books, May 2008, $24.00

Michael Chabon has had the good luck to be writing in an era when it’s possible to both be a respected, bestselling literary writer and have a public, abiding love for some of the more disreputable genres. His best-known novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay, is not only a fictionalized story of the fledgling comic-book industry during World War II, but also has a very definite fantasy element. And his latest novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, is a detective story set in an alternate history – tying it into two types of genre fiction.

If he’d started writing twenty years earlier, or even ten, he probably wouldn’t have been able to do that; only in the last decade or so have writers like Chabon (and Jonathan Lethem, who transitioned from genre science fiction straight into the “literary novel”) been able to admit to their love of genre. Previously, literary writers could go slumming and use genre ideas once in a while – think Doris Lessing with the “Canopus in Argo” series, or The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – but they could never admit to reading or liking books actually published in that genre. Kurt Vonnegut, after all, was only taken seriously because he ritually denied being a SF writer every day before breakfast.

But Chabon goes even further than his pop-culture-loving compatriots do; he doesn’t just admit to liking science fiction and detective stories – he’s even willing to claim that comics can be pretty damn good, and that some of them have influence him.

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Happy Birthday: Jesse Santos

News
June 24, 2008

Born in Teresa, Rizal, in the Philippines in 1928, Jesse F. Santos was already displaying his art as a young boy—at the age of ten he did the mural for his church.

By 14 he was working as a professional artist. During World War II Santos sketched portraits for American G.I.s. This led to an invitation to work on Halakhak Komics, the Philipines’ first serialized comic book, in 1946. Santos teamed with writer Damy Velasquez to create Kidlat, and later they created the detective strip DI-13 for Pilipino Komiks.

In 1969 Santos and his family moved to the U.S. He then got work with Western Publications, where he illustrated books like Davy Crockett and worked on several Gold Key comic books, including Dr. Spektor, Brothers of the Spear, Tragg, and Dagar.

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