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‘Hobbit’ Talk With Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro

‘Hobbit’ Talk With Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro

Chip the glasses, crack the plates… and if you want a chance to chat with directors Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro about the live-action adaptation of The Hobbit, make sure to sign up and join the "Unexpected Party" on May 24!

Okay, okay, I realize that was a weak attempt at showing some Hobbit cred, but you get the idea. The point here is that the noted directors will be participating in a chatroom-style Q&A with fans this Saturday, May 24. They’ll be talking all-things Hobbit, but anyone hoping to get their questions answered will need to sign up ahead of time.

I’m not entirely certain how the process is going to work, but the prospect of finding out more information about the upcoming live-action adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s prequel to The Lord of the Rings has piqued my interest, to put it mildly.

Anyone wishing to join the "Unexpected Party" with Jackson and del Toro can do so on the Weta website at: www.wetanz.com/party/register/.

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut, by Michael Davis

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut, by Michael Davis

…sometimes you don’t. Today, I do.

Let me warn you in advance this article will have little if anything to do with comics, movies, or politics or any other popular culture obsession I tend to write about. This article is about how I feel, as in how I feel. I tell you this for two reasons; the first is my apology if this column wastes your time, the second is because I think of my readers as friends and writing this may help me feel better.

So in a very real way I’m looking for a little help from my friends.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been a bit depressed. I mean really depressed. I’ve had no pep, nothing seems to move me, I’ve been sleeping a lot and I have very little motivation. When I say sleeping a lot I mean a lot. I’m getting eight hours of sleep a night. A normal night for me is five hours max. My mood accounts for my last two lackluster articles. Hey, I know they were not great and anytime I do a fluff piece on a personal favorite artist of mine like Sinatra then I’m really at a lost for something to say.

This behavior is SO not who I am. Coming from a family with deep roots in the medical field I was told by more than one person that I might be clinically depressed.

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ComicMix Radio: Picard Lives… And So Do Sisko And Archer!

ComicMix Radio: Picard Lives… And So Do Sisko And Archer!

For the first time ever, there is no new original Star Trek series on television, but your favorite characters are alive and well in book form. Discover what’s been going on with the Next Gen crew, DS9 and more, plus:

— Marvel unveils two new, hard-to-get treasures

— Famous Monsters is back!

— "Dial H For"??

You just want to kill time before the three-day weekend – so  press the button!

 

 

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

 

Summertime… and the Grilling is Easy with a Munden’s Bar Apron

Summertime… and the Grilling is Easy with a Munden’s Bar Apron

Here at ComicMix, we’re traditionalists that believe summer actually starts on Memorial Day weekend, no matter what movies premiere in early May. So, with the official start of grilling season, may we humbly recommend that you do so with a Munden’s Bar grilling apron?

Straight from the pages of Munden’s Bar, with our multiverse-famous slogan "If you leave here sober, it’s your own damn fault", this apron will protect you from grease, slime, beer, and other hazards of the barbecue. And at the low, low price of $17.99, how can you go wrong? Okay, you could go wrong by taking a chainsaw to school and saying the leprechauns are telling you to carve up the auditorium stage, but that’s a unique way to get out of final exams, at least.

Remember: the more Munden‘s merchandise you buy, the more Munden‘s stories we put out! So buy those beer steins and coasters too!

[/End of soft sell.]

Black Ice: Protein-Laced Zyp

Black Ice: Protein-Laced Zyp

In today’s brand-new episode of Black Ice, by Mike Baron and Lee Oaks, the Prince takes the Helmet to which he believes he was born. The King and Queen learn of their son’s alleged death.  And, oh yeah, there’s dragons.

 

Credits: Mike Baron (Writer), Lee Oaks (Artist), Bob Pinaha (Letterer), Matt Webb (Colorist), Mike Gold (Editor)

More: Black Ice

 

Brian K. Vaughan to Write ‘Runaways’ Movie

Brian K. Vaughan to Write ‘Runaways’ Movie

Big name superheroes like The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers aren’t the only Marvel properties hitting the big screen.

The lesser known characters are getting their crack at film stardom, including the ragtag group of young heroes known as the Runaways.

Created in 2002 by Brian K. Vaughan as part of Marvel’s Tsunami line, Runaways follows a group of kids who discover their parents are evil supervillains. Vaughn, who left the series at the conclusion of the second volume, will return to the property he co-created and write the script for the upcoming movie.

No director is currently attached to the film, but maybe they’ll hire Richard Donner and the movie will be like a super-powered version of The Goonies.

(via Hollywood Reporter)

Happy Birthday: Hergé

Happy Birthday: Hergé

Georges Prosper Remi was born in Etterbeek, Brussels, Belgium in 1907. He was still in school during World War I, when Brussels was occupied by the Germans, and doodled images of the invaders in his notebooks.

In 1920 he attended the collège Saint-Boniface and joined the Boy Scouts troop there. His first published drawings were in the school’s Scout paper and in the monthly Boy Scouts magazine Le Boy-Scout Belge. In 1924 he began signing his illustrations “Hergé,” the French pronunciation of his first and last initials reversed. He would keep the pseudonym for the rest of his life.

After finishing school, Hergé worked at the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siècle. In 1926 he published his first cartoon series, Totor, in Le Boy-Scout Belge. In 1928 Hergé was given responsibility for Le XXe Siècle’s weekly children’s supplement, Le Petit Vingtième.

In 1929 he debuted a new strip of his own creation there, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Tintin became an immediate success, and Hergé produced new Tintin adventures right up to his death in 1983—the 24th and last one, Tintin and Alph-Art, was published unfinished.

Hergé received many awards during his lifetime, including the Harvey, the Eisner, the Adamson, and the Grand Prix Saint Michel. He was posthumously inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003.

 

New Yorker Copies Kirby ‘Tales To Astonish’ Cover Image?

New Yorker Copies Kirby ‘Tales To Astonish’ Cover Image?

 According to Gawker, the New Yorker recently ran a cartoon that plagiarizes the very famous cover of Tales to Astonish by King of Comics, Jack Kirby.  The too-cool-for-school blog asks, "Comic book geeks, your services are at last required.  How obscure is this?" 

On behalf of geeks everywhere, allow me to say, it’s not at all obscure.  It’s one of the more famous images around.

[Above image pulled from Gawker for use in comparison.]

Interview: Mark Sable on Cyborg, the ‘Heroes’ Webcomic and ‘Two-Face: Year One’

Interview: Mark Sable on Cyborg, the ‘Heroes’ Webcomic and ‘Two-Face: Year One’

When it comes to portraying the duality of a character, there are probably no better examples in the DCU than Victor Stone and Harvey Dent — otherwise known as Cyborg and Two-Face. With two new miniseries, Grounded writer Mark Sable intends to bring readers the back-stories of these two tragic characters.

With DC Special: Cyborg, the writer takes a look at the fan-favorite Teen Titan in a six-issue arc that began this week. Victor Stone was an Olympic athlete who, after being crippled, was resurrected with experimental prosthetics by his scientist father. Blessed with powers but cursed by his accident, he called himself Cyborg and became an important member of the Teen Titans. Created in 1980 by Marv Wolfman and George Perez and introduced in the pages of The New Teen Titans, Cyborg quickly became one of the most popular DC characters of the ‘80s. He even became a member of the Super Friends on the ‘80s Saturday morning cartoon, The Super Powers Team: The Galactic Guardians.

In Two-Face: Year One, the writer takes a look at one of Batman’s most dangerous villains in a miniseries whose first issue hits shelves just days before Aaron Eckhart takes on the big-screen role of Harvey Dent in July’s Dark Knight. The two-issue miniseries follows Dent as he runs for District Attorney and has the accident that changes his fate (and his relationship with Batman) forever.

I spoke with Sable about Cyborg, Two-Face, the characters’ respective miniseries and writing webcomics for the hit NBC television series Heroes.

CMix: To start with, tell us what fans of Cyborg can expect from your new series.

Mark Sable: It’s a six-issue series and the first issue is almost like a “Year One” in the sense that it gives you a lot of his origin. I’m not tinkering with his origin. I’m trying to be as respectful as possible to what Marv Wolfman and George Perez did, because I think Cyborg’s origin is one of the best in comics. There were a couple of things that needed to be slightly tweaked to make everything make sense. It’s done deliberately because I want people who aren’t familiar with Cyborg to be able to pick it up. It lays the groundwork for what this series is about. Without giving too much away, we really weave his supporting cast of human characters into the story as well as the Teen Titans, so it was important for people to know who they are.

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Review: ‘The Rabbi’s Cat 2’ by Joann Sfar

Review: ‘The Rabbi’s Cat 2’ by Joann Sfar

Joann Sfar, one of the major lights of the current European graphic novel scene, has written or collaborated on more than one hundred books, but probably his most famous and acclaimed work is the original [[[The Rabbi’s Cat]]], which won the prestigious Jury Prize at the Festival International de la BD d’Angouleme (Angouleme International Comics Festival).

Sadly, I still haven’t read it. Luckily, that means that I can review this sequel with an eye towards the new reader – since I was one myself.

The Rabbi’s Cat 2
By Joann Sfar
Pantheon, April 2008, $22.95

The title character is a nameless talking cat in Algiers in the 1930s, the pet of Rabbi Sfar – or perhaps of his beautiful, frustrated daughter Zlabya and her husband, a younger, urbane rabbi from Paris. I say “talking cat,” but most of the characters can’t tell that he talks – and it’s not clear what the difference is between those who can and those who can’t. (But the reader can always understand, which is the most important thing.) [[[The Rabbi’s Cat 2]]] collects what were the fourth and fifth French albums in the series, as the original Rabbi’s Cat collected the first three.

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