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MoCCA Catches Fire!

Smoke in the sub-basement, fire in the sky…  As if this weekend’s MoCCA Art Festival weren’t already the hottest ticket in town during the hottest couple of days so far this year, there was a fire condition around 3 PM on Sunday that wound up causing an evacuation of the building.

An earlier video of the event was taken down from YouTube for some reason, but Brian Heater of The Daily Cross Hatch posted one of his own. Have a look:

According to MoCCA founder Lawrence Klein, there was apparently a "smoke condition" in the building’s sub-basement, nowhere near either of the convention floors or window-based air conditioning units. Attending professionals and fans were probably not all that thrilled to be ushered out into the 90-degree heat, but better safe than sorry!

Doctor Who in Review: Season Four, Episode #6 – The Doctor’s Daughter

The hit BBC series Doctor Who is now in its fourth season on the Sci-Fi Channel, and since we’re all big fans here at ComicMix, we’ve decided to kick off an episode-by-episode analysis of the reinvigorated science-fiction classic.

Every week, we’ll have our best Who-philes go through the most recent episode with a fine-tooth comb (or whatever the "sonic screwdriver" equivalent might be) and call out all of the continuity checks, names dropped and storyline hints we can find to keep in mind for future episodes. We’ll post our analysis each Monday, so you have ample time to check out the episode once it airs each Friday at 9 PM EST on Sci-Fi Channel before reading our review.

Missed a week? Check out our "Doctor Who in Review" archive or check out any of the past editions of this column via the links at the end of this article.

Keep in mind, we’re going to assume readers have already watched the episode when we put fingers to keyboard and come up with our roundup of important plot points. In other words, SPOILER ALERT!

Let’s begin now, shall we?

Season Four, Episode #6: "The Doctor’s Daughter" (more…)

Iron Man Featured in New ‘Incredible Hulk’ Trailer

As most of you know by now, Marvel and Universal are taking the Incredible Hulk marketing into full swing this week, with one TV spot that may just be giving away a little too much.

Those of you who stayed till the end of Iron Man know that Sam Jackson pops up as fellow Marvel character Nick Fury, and rumor had it that we would be getting the same treatment with the next film from Marvel Studios, with Robert Downey Jr. rumored to appear as Tony Stark in the upcoming Incredible Hulk.

Well, it looks like the cat is out of the bag here, because according to the TV spot that hit the airwaves last night, Downey is definitely in the picture. It seems bizarre that the studios would spoil what could have been another big cameo, but such a move is likely indicative of the studios’ worries regarding the film — and an effort to ride the coattails of the biggest movie of 2008?

Check out the video below, but beware: If you would rather enjoy the surprise in the theater, stay away!

 


 

You can also view the video <a href=”

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Incredible Hulk hits theaters this week on Friday, June 13.

Not Necessarily The News, by Mike Gold

I have previously opined my regrets that America’s most reliable newspaper – some might say only reliable newspaper – the Weekly World News, bit the dust. It was a hoot.

Because the New York Post cloaks itself in the shroud of legitimacy, it may very well be America’s most unreliable newspaper. It is the hairy wart on Rupert Murdoch’s considerable media ass, which is saying something. The Post is completely bereft of credibility.

But they’ve got a sense of humor about it, and I’ve got to give them credit. Rupert’s book publishing division Harper Collins came out with a volume reprinting many of the, ahhh, more interesting front pages published in the Post since he bought the staid, boring tabloid and converted it into a daily joke. But at least it’s a good joke.

Entitled Headless Body In Topless Bar, the book was named after what may very well be the most memorable front page headline since Variety’s “Wall Street Lays An Egg.” That one set the standard for both the rag and for journalism itself: rarely has an entire story been reduced to five words. They did that back in 1983 and haven’t beaten it yet.

They reprint over 150 front pages in black and white (most were published in black and white, but the paper went to color several years ago) – from “Crowe Flies” (Russell; get it?) to “Good Noose” (about Saddam’s sentencing), from “Bowling For Palestine” (Arafat’s theft of pro-Palestinian funds) to my second-favorite: “V-D Day!” The sub-head, which does nothing to illuminate the story, is “Paris liberated, bimbos rejoice.” You couldn’t mix that many messages in a blender. (more…)

Friends of Lulu Awards 2008

Friends of Lulu, the organization dedicated to increasing the involvement of girls and women in comics, as both professionals and consumers, held their annual Lulu Awards at the New York Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art on Saturday, June 7.  Until now, the awards have been presented during the San Diego Comic-Con.  This is the first time the event has been held in New York.

And a glittering evening it was.  There were several glamorous gowns, lots of cool earrings, and more cleavage than one sees at an average comic industry night out.  After a cocktail half-hour starting at 8:30, the ceremonies began at 9 PM.

Emily Flake was the Mistress of Ceremonies, and she ran a very tight ship.  The presenters were introduced, announced the nominees, and awarded the trophies.  Here’s the list, with the winners in bold:

Kim Yale Award for Best New Talent (presented by 2007 winner Rachel Nabors):

Martina Fugazzotto, senior designer, gURL.com
Kiki Jones, gURL.com Comix artist
Julia Wertz, The Fart Party

Woman of Distinction, for contribution in areas other than writing and art (presented by Heidi MacDonald):

Shelly Bond, group editor, Vertigo; editor, MINX line
Cindy Fournier, VP Operations, Diamond Comics Distributors
Janna Morishima, director, Diamond Kids Group (more…)

ComicMix Columns/Features for the Week Ending June 8, 2008

Greetings from the MoCCA Art Fest, where ComicMix will be out in force today!  We’re probably having the time of our lives, having prepared this roundup well beforehand.  Good thing, too, as we keep adding more new features!  Here’s the scoop on what our columnists and feature-ists have brought you this past week:

Back to the fun at the Puck Building!  Or is that the pun at the F– no wait, that can’t be right…

MoCCA Recap: Day One – Heat, Buzz, Star Wars and Dinosaur Comics

With one day down, I still feel pretty good about declaring MoCCA Arts Festival my favorite comics event thus far this season.

Sure, it doesn’t have the numbers or names of New York Comic Con or San Diego’s Comic-Con International, but it also doesn’t have 100,000 people vying for seats in 1,000-chair auditoriums and competing, mind-numbingly overpowered loudpseakers at every other booth. What it does have, however, is a great opportunity to actually meet, greet and have an honest-to-goodness conversation with professionals at every level of the industry.

So how did the first day go?

Well, I arrived a few hours after the doors opened to the show — just about the time the weather outside turned from "oppressive" to "unbearable," but before the transition to "stay the hell inside at all costs" occurred. After bumping into Fleen.com’s Gary Tyrrell, the main mustache himself took me on a whirlwind tour of the show, culminating with my purchase of Harvest Is When I Need You The Most, the Star Wars fanbook featuring the work of eight cartoonists paying homage to the film franchise. The Harvest crew had only brought 50 with them to the show, and I believe I purchased one of the last dozen-or-so remaining. (more…)

Popeye and the Langridge of Heroism, by Michael H. Price

  • Uncategorized
  • June 8, 2008

popeye-vol-2-5391414The breakthrough of the season, as far as superhuman heroism goes, might lie beyond such big-screen spectacles as Iron Man and the June 13 opening of The Incredible Hulk. The watershed lies, in part, in a set of Popeye the Sailor cartoons that have gone largely unseen – in authentic form, anyhow – since the late 1930s and the earlier 1940s.

A companionable development is a new series of hardcover books reprinting the original Popeye comic strips of writer-artist E.C. Segar. The current volume is Popeye Vol. 2: “Well, Blow Me Down!” (Fantagraphics Books; $29.95). A third collection is due in the fall. The elaborately packaged Fantagraphics shelf commences at the commencement with Popeye Vol. 1: “I Yam What I Yam.”

The books qualify as near-architectural marvels in their own right – towering, heavy-stock packages with die-cut front-cover windows and an interior design that showcases many days’ worth of the newspaper feature with each spread. A full-color section devotes a page to each of what originally had served as Sunday-supplement episodes, complete to the extent of reproducing Segar’s subordinate feature, Sappo, about a household in perpetual turmoil.

The stories in Vol. 2 include a wild Frontier Gothic pitting Popeye’s entourage against a mob of cattle rustlers; and a scathingly funny commentary upon charity-vs.-greed, in which Popeye attempts a banking career in defiance of all practical sense. There surfaces a gemlike example of Segar’s gift for mangling and/or improving upon the langridge: When Popeye uses the adjective liberous, does he mean “liberal,” or “generous,” huh? Neither – he means liberous, and So There. The book also sports a touching tribute to Segar from Beetle Bailey’s Mort Walker.

(more…)

ComicMix Radio: Action Guaranteed For ‘Incredible Hulk’

No matter what turns up on the big screen next week, The Incredible Hulk will be action-packed. That’s the promise we got from director Louis Leterrier, plus:

— William Messner-Loebs goes Boom!

— The Hulk producer acquired more comics

— Baseball cards go digital, but how do we get the gum?

And are you shocked? More sellouts at Marvel. Get the scoop now by pressing the button!

 

 

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Happy Birthday: Graham Ingels

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1915, Graham Ingels began work early, joining the work force at 14, shortly after his father died. At 16 he began doing art jobs. He married at 20 and entered the Navy at 27 in 1943. After WWII, Ingels worked for Fiction House, Magazine Enterprises, and several other comic book and pulp magazine publishers.

In 1948, he began drawing Western and romance stories at EC Comics. He switched to the horror line—Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, and The Haunt of Fear—as soon as they began and was quickly dubbed “Ghastly Graham Ingels” for his facility with the genre. By 1952, Ingels was even signing his work as “Ghastly.”

After the horror line was canceled in the early 1950s, Ingels contributed to other EC lines, and then did some work for Classics Illustrated after EC folded in the mid-1950s.

He later taught art in Westport, Connecticut, and then became an art instructor in Florida. Ingels died in 1991.

 

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