The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Review: ‘Emiko Superstar’ by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston

emiko-3862849[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of reviews of the five books coming out from DC’s Minx imprint this year. Previously, Van Jensen reviewed Rebecca Donner’s Burnout, Cecil Castellucci’s Janes in Love, Brian Wood‘s The New York Four and Ross Campbell’s Water Baby. -RM]

There are no shortage of comics that feature an "ordinary" central character who decides to venture into the "strange" side of life. Emiko Superstar (Minx, $9.99) follows that well worn path, but it takes a surprising turn and ends up as quite a pleasant read.

Emiko is a teenage girl, something of a dork living a boring suburban existence. A summer of mindless minimum-wage labor is interrupted when Emiko sees a public outburst from an "art freak" and learns of an underground arts scene.

An outsider trying to break into a group of outsiders, Emiko unsteadily inserts herself into the scene, learning all the expected lessons (freaks are people too, you can discover yourself through art).

Ho hum, right? Except not quite, as writer Mariko Tamaki twists the book cleverly, pointing out that cool outsiders have as many problems as most people. That revelation is balanced by another, of the serious problems seemingly normal people have.

Life’s a big mess, Emiko learns, and sometimes you have to work hard to get through. Who can’t relate to that?

Van Jensen is a former crime reporter turned comic book journalist. Every Wednesday, he braves Atlanta traffic to visit Oxford Comics, where he reads a whole mess of books for his weekly reviews. Van’s blog can be found at graphicfiction.wordpress.com.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Van Jensen directly at van (dot) jensen (at) gmail (dot) com.

Chuck Dixon, Dean Koontz and ‘Frankenstein: Prodigal Son’

  • News
  • June 13, 2008

Earlier this month, our friends at Famous Monsters of Filmland posted a nice chat with writer Chuck Dixon about his work on the adaptation of Dean Koontz’ Frankenstein: Prodigal Son. The six-issue series features a story adapted by Dixon with art by Brett Booth, and is published by the Dabel Bros.

Here, Dixon describes the process of adapting the work of the noted horror author:

FM: How does one adapt a novel to a comic book?

Chuck: In this case it was easy! Dean breaks this stuff down like a comic script. Fast paced and lots of juicy visuals.

The process is like this: I read the novel through and then go back and re-read with post-it notes and a highlighter pen in hand. I highlight significant dialogue and mark page breaks and put in post-its for the issue breaks. Like I said, it was real easy this time. Usually I have to hunt for strong visuals as most novels tend to be internal. But this book gave me option paralysis with all the cool and gruesome stuff.

The first issue of Frankenstein: Prodigal Son is already on shelves. For the full interview, head over to Famous Monsters of Filmland.

Foo Fighters to Develop ‘The Amazing Joy Buzzards’ Music?

  • News
  • June 13, 2008

The Amazing Joy Buzzards has been an under-the-radar favorite of mine for quite a while now, so it was nice to see the series’ name appear on this week’s list of releases. Apparently, Image Comics is publishing a new "director’s cut" of the first volume of the superhero rock band’s adventures, titled "Here Come the Spiders."

Matt Brady has posted an interview with Mark Andrew Smith and Dan Hipp, who write and provide the art for the series, respectively.

During the interview, Smith drops this piece of information that made me even more fond of the series — and its (potential) future:

We’re always quiet on what the Amazing Joy Buzzards sound like because every reader plugs their own favorite band into the spot. But soon we might have an Amazing Joy Buzzards cartoon in the works with the Foo Fighters involved developing their sound so eventually for film and animation they will actually have a sound if all goes well.

Foo Fighters, eh? Here’s the part when I say, "Rock on."

For the rest of the interview, head over to Brady’s website.

[UPDATE – June 19, 2008: Mark Andrew Smith recently contacted ComicMix to clarify that nothing is finalized regarding the Foo Fighters or the band’s involvement with anything related to Amazing Joy Buzzards. The text of the interview on Matt Brady’s website has been edited to remove any reference to the band’s involvement, as the terms of any agreement with Foo Fighters or other entities are still under discussion. We have preserved the excerpt of the original interview here, in the interest of maintaining transparency. -RM]

Webcomic News Roundup: Garfield Hearts PvP, She-Hulk Has Powerful Lady Parts

  • News
  • June 13, 2008

The post-event reports from the MoCCA Art Festival are finally starting to dwindle, but in case you missed my Day One and Day Two reports, go back and check them out for a few earlier bits of news from the digital side of the comics world.

Here are a few more items of note from the week’s webcomics scene:

Fleen‘s Gary Tyrrell has posted his exceptionally comprehensive MoCCA report, which covers a lot of ground in and around the online comics community. He’s also posted a nice gallery of photos from the event, including this great shot of Octopus Pie creator Meredith Gran that illustrates the proper way to stretch every few hours during a show. Unfortunately, some guy ruined one of the last photos he posted.

Over at Diesel Sweeties, Rich Stevens recently contemplated the perils of sexing up She-Hulk. owch

I broke the solo format with my weekly webcomic interviews this time around, and asked some questions of the pair of talented creators behind A Softer World, Joey Comeau and Emily Horne. They had some great answers, too. (more…)

freak-7025078

Manga Friday: Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting

  • News
  • June 13, 2008

freak-4828629

This week it’s time to go back to what manga do best – or one of the things manga do best, anyway – stories about people fighting and killing each other, usually with long point bits of metal. To make it even more interesting, all three of the books I’m looking at this week are later books in series – and I’ve only seen the earlier books in one case. So this might just turn into another installment of Stump the Reviewer…

Freak: Legend of the Nonblonds, Vol. 3
Story by Yi DongEun; Art by Yu Chung
Yen Press, June 2008, $10.99

Three people –the increasingly oddly named Verna, Lorel, and Tublerun – live together (I think) and are the “Nonblonds,” a troupe of fighter/bounty hunter/martial artists, which apparently is a legitimate career in this world. (And that’s not unusual for manga, actually.)

None of them are blonde – which I wouldn’t have been sure about if Tublerun wasn’t the guy on the cover, but leave that aside – but I have no idea why that matters. Oh, and Verna – a dark-skinned woman, when the other two are light-skinned men – has been spending too much time in “Cerebro” lately, to make more money for someone who’s been in a coma for fifteen years.

Anyway, in this book, Tublerun – who I think was previously the goofball of the group, or perhaps even the explicit comedy relief, takes a solo job up near the North Pole. There, a girl named Marti, who calls herself the personal secretary of President Magnus and says the quest is an unofficial GIA event, tells an assembled group of tough characters that they are going to go into “an ancient site where the method of liquid metal-making was created” to find and retrieve a capsule for a vast reward.

With her is a guy who is, in order, Mr. Ecliptor, GIA’s security chief, and the son of “our President.” (He’s also, once he puts on a mask, the powerful and deadly Chroma – this may be a secret identity.) (more…)

book-large-5291015

Interview: Scott Allie on Shepherd Book’s ‘Serenity’ Spin-Off and ‘Solomon Kane’

  • Uncategorized
  • June 13, 2008

book-large-5291015Previously on ComicMix, I spoke with Dark Horse Comics’ Editor Scott Allie about a variety of subjects including Buffy: Season Eight, Joss Whedon, the Dark Horse/MySpace Comics project and the rise of digital media.

This time around, we revisit a few old topics (because there’s always something new going on with Dark Horse projects in the Joss Whedon universe), discuss who might be handling the Serenity spin-offs and talk a bit about the origin of Shepherd Book.

COMICMIX: Okay, Scott, we talked about Serenity spin-offs before, like the one featuring Shepherd Book. Will it be old Buffy and Serenity writers on that one or…

SCOTT ALLIE: No. Joss [Whedon] will still have his role as co-writer, plotter, all that, but the rest of this is changing up. This one is such a different thing. It’s a flashback with a single character, before the television show, so we figured it was an opportunity to go in a real different direction.

CMix: There’s a story about the Shepherd Book comic’s origin, right? Something about Ron Glass (who plays the character in both the tevelvision series and feature film) going on a cruise?

(more…)

hollywood3-1311736

The Walk Of Fame, by Michael Davis

  • News
  • June 13, 2008

hollywood3-9385254Whenever I meet a celebrity, I say one of two things: either Can I have some money? or Black people love you. Which one depends on the star. When I met Al Sharpton it would not have been cool to say black people love you… because they don’t.

I’m kidding. It’s just much more fun to say black people love you to someone who’s not black. The looks on their faces are mostly priceless… mostly. I work in television and have the opportunity to meet a bunch of Hollywood types – actors, directors and producers. When I meet someone on business I’m not quite the knucklehead I am when I meet someone at a party or some other random place.

I’m always interested in what people who don’t work in the industry think of celebrities. If you read my column regularly you know I’m hard on some Hollywood stars and their behavior.  So I thought I would take the time to give you a few of my many positive encounters.

The first time I ever took a drink I was in the ninth grade and I was trying to be cool. My friend Earl and I were going to a party and we each had a bottle of really cheap wine. Earl had a bottle of Wild Irish Rose and I had a bottle of MD2020. That’s short for Mad Dog. How did two 13 years old kids get their hands on those bottles of wine? We went in and gave the clerk money, that’s how.

What about ID’s? (more…)

Video: David Tennant Talks ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Hamlet’

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

In a recent video interview with the BBC, Doctor Who‘s David Tennant chatted up Andrew Marre about the hit science-fiction series, his breakthrough role on Taking Over the Asylum and his upcoming turn as Hamlet.

I’ve embedded the full Andrew Marre episode below, but you can watch a higher-resolution version focused on the Tennant portion of the show, over at BBC News.

 


 

(semi-via LitG)

 

The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Hole Story

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

In today’s brand-new, full color episode of The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Maltese Duck, by Andrew Pepoy, our heroes find themselves in a mysterious, lost city.  In Michigan.  Will they escape?  Will Simone find an outfit with no ripped seams?  And why do lemmings always know?

Credits: Andrew Pepoy (Artist), Andrew Pepoy (Letterer), Andrew Pepoy (Writer), Jason Millet (Colorist), Mike Gold (Editor-In-Chief)

More: The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck

 

linklogo2-4941771

twoface-3004176

Happy Birthday: Two-Face

  • News
  • June 12, 2008

twoface-6656997Harvey Dent was young, charismatic, idealistic, and driven—at 26 he was the youngest District Attorney Gotham City had ever had, and the press dubbed him “Apollo” for his good lucks and his meteoric rise.

Dent’s idealism was also flexible enough that he recognized the good Batman did, even if the Dark Night Detective didn’t always follow the rules. The two wound up becoming staunch allies, even friends, and their passions for justice actually complemented each other.
 

Until, one June 12th, Dent reached the high point of his career—prosecuting Sal “Boss” Maroni for murder. Unbeknownst to Dent, his own assistant Vernon Field worked for Maroni, and when Maroni was forced to take the stand Field handed him an antacid bottle filled with sulfuric acid. Dent got up to cross-examine Maroni, displaying his key evidence—Maroni’s good luck charm, a two-headed coin he always carried, which he had carelessly left at the scene of the crime.

Maroni then hurled the acid—Batman tried to intervene but only managed to deflect the attack so Dent caught the acid on the left side of his face and on his left hand instead of across his entire face. The attack did not kill him, as Maroni had planned, but did leave Dent permanently disfigured—in mind as well as body.

The horribly scarred D.A. snapped and turned to a life of crime and violence himself, scarring one side of Maroni’s coin and flipping it to determine his actions whenever presented with a choice between good and evil. And thus Two-Face, one of Batmnan’s most dangerous villains, was born.

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks