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‘Wesley Wyndham-Price’ Warns Salt Lake City Council of Zombie Attack

  • News
  • April 7, 2008

Hopefully you’ve already read the April Fools Day Round-Up we put together (with some help from ComicMix readers), but even if you did, here’s one we missed.

From the April 6 edition of The Salt Lake Tribune, City Council report:

Georgia transplant Wesley Wyndham-Price calmly stood before the City Council, cautioning members about downtown’s derelict emergency-preparedness plan. City elders are "insouciantly" unaware of risks to City Creek Center, he warned.

Wyndham-Price even paused to joke that Georgia’s saltwater taffy is better than Utah’s. "I hope that is not an ad hominem," he shrugged.

Then he got specific and all reason helicoptered into the ether.

City Creek needs an emergency-preparedness plan, he demanded, against zombies.

"Zombies are fierce," he said as a crammed council chamber laughed nervously. "They are going to catch us in there."

Yes, in addition to continuing their adventures in the pages of Dark Horse and IDW comics, your favorite characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel are apparently still preaching the gospel of undead threats… to Mormons.

 

(via Whedonesque)

More Viral Marketing For ‘The Dark Knight’

  • News
  • April 7, 2008

Face it, folks. You cannot stop the marketing team of The Dark Knight, you can only hope to contain them.

A website for the Gotham Police Department Major Crimes Unit has popped up on the ‘Net recently, featuring a shot of Gary Oldman’s returning character, Lieutenant James Gordon, and a quote that provides a nice wink-wink, nudge-nudge moment to fans of the comic:

Lieutenant James Gordon has been tapped to head this unit. Long recognized as an exemplary officer, Gordon has an unblemished reputation for fairness and honesty. Police Commissioner Loeb says, "With the establishment of the new Gotham Major Crimes Unit, we join the ranks of the major cities of this country and the world in modern police strategies and tactics."

"Commissioner Loeb," eh?

A video of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character in the film, Rachel Dawes, speaking in support of future Two-Face, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), is also making the rounds.

For more on the massive viral marketing campaign currently in play for The Dark Knight, check out some of our recent coverage:

‘The Dark Knight’ Viral Marketing Prizes Revealed

‘The Dark Knight’ Viral Marketing Strikes Again!

Harvey Dent and the ‘Dark Knight’ Marketing Campaign

 

(via SHH)

 

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Happy Birthday: Golden Age Batman

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The Bruce Wayne of Earth-Two was born on April 7, 1915. A crook named Joe Chill robbed and killed Bruce’s parents in 1924, when Bruce was only eight years old. Bruce dedicated his life to avenging his parents’ deaths and protecting others from criminals and their evil deeds.

After many years of training, Bruce donned a fearsome costume and became the Batman. He was a member of both the Justice Society of America and the All-Star Squadron, and despite not having any superpowers was considered one of the greatest of the American heroes. Bruce also reformed and married the former Catwoman, Selina Kyle—together they had a daughter, Helena Wayne, who later became the Huntress.

After many years, Bruce decided he was too old to continue as the Batman and retired from that side of his life, passing the mantle to his friend and student Dick Grayson. Bruce became the police commissioner of Gotham City instead. The fact that he had been the original Batman became public after Selina died in his arms trying to stop a former Catwoman henchman.

In 1979, Bruce was coaxed out of costumed retirement one last time to stop a super-powered crook named Bill Jensen, and the mission led to Bruce Wayne’s death. After his death, Doctor Fate erased the world’s knowledge that Bruce Wayne and Batman had been the same person.

Was Fredric Wertham a Villain?

  • Uncategorized
  • April 7, 2008

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In David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague, as well as in most other books about the golden age of comics, Fredric Wertham is used as an antagonist, that stuffy pseudo-psychologist who decided comic books made kids do evil things and helped topple the industry.

Wetham wrote the best-selling Seduction of the Innocent, which purportedly proved that the violence in comic books pushed some children toward misbehavior. He later testified against comics in the senate hearings that served as a tipping point in the crusade against funny books.

In a new article on Slate, Jeet Heer argues that the treatment of Wertham as "a real-life bad guy worse than the Joker, Lex Luthor, and Magneto combined" isn’t completely true, and doesn’t give enough credit to the good work Wertham did with children and minorities.

It’s a good companion piece to The Ten-Cent Plague (my review of David Hajdu’s book can be found here), but there are a couple of unfair jabs at Hajdu for demonizing Wertham, though Hajdu actually did a pretty thorough job of showing Wertham’s benevolent history. And, for that matter, Hajdu didn’t treat comics as blameless and innocent, which Heer insinuates.

Those minor points aside, Heer’s piece summarizes the crux of the battle over comics and gives a fitting assessment of Wertham’s role. Heer writes:

The guardians of childhood face a difficult balancing act: They have to let kids give imaginative rein to their more destructive emotions while also protecting the young from genuinely harmful words and images. With his blunt language and crude simplifications, Fredric Wertham made this balancing act harder, not easier. If he had paid more attention to comic books, Wertham would have realized that he was following down the path of villains like Lex Luthor and Dr. Doom, who start off with good intentions only to become prisoners of their own blind arrogance.

‘Heroes: Origins’ Cancelled

  • News
  • April 7, 2008

Ben Silverman, the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, has confirmed that the heavily hyped Heroes spin-off, Heroes: Origins, has officially been scrapped.

The series was originaly supposed to present the origins of characters with super powers, some of which would have been incorporated into the parent show. Top notch writers and directors like Kevin Smith and Eli Roth were attached to the spin-off before it was unceremoniously dumped.

No explanation was given for axing the spin-off, but the poor quality and declining ratings of the second season of Heroes may have been a factor. As for the parent show, it should return for a third season of 20 episodes if all goes well and the Screen Actors Guild doesn’t go on strike this summer.

(via Comicbookmovie)

Demons of Sherwood: It’s Time For the Real Demons!

  • News
  • April 7, 2008

In today’s brand-new episode of Demons of Sherwood, by Bo Hampton and Robert Tinnell, the Holy Grail changes hands.  Also, we find out something especially interesting about Bronwyn.

Credits:Bo Hampton (Artist), Bo Hampton (Colorist), Bo Hampton (Letterer), Bo Hampton (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor), Robert Tinnell (Writer)

More: Demons of Sherwood

 

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Interview: Peter David on Stephen King, ‘X-Factor’ and ‘Dark Tower’

  • News
  • April 7, 2008

Peter David has had many successes during his long career as a writer. From his beginnings as an assistant in the sales department at Marvel Comics, through his character-redefining run on The Incredible Hulk, to his bestselling Star Trek novels, David’s talent, wit and style continue to serve him, and his readers, very well.

More recently, he’s taken on the task of helping to bring Stephen King’s The Dark Tower to the pages of comics and jumped back into the X-Universe by writing the re-booted  X-Factor title for Marvel. ComixMix recently caught up with the multi-talented author to get the latest on X-Factor, how he works with artists and the legendary Stephen King, and what makes a good story.

COMICMIX: Peter, thanks for taking the time to talk. Getting right to it, take us back a bit — how did you get started writing comics?

PETER DAVID: Well, I was working in the sales dedepartment at Marvel Comics under Carol Kalish and writing was something I was doing on the side. Long story short, I started pitching ideas around at Marvel and wound up impressing Jim Owsley, the then-editor of Spider-Man, and was assigned to Spectacular Spider Man as a writer.

I did that for about a year or a year-and-a-half. After that, I was offered the Incredible Hulk, which I, of course, took on. During that time, I also started to send out inquires to other publishers like DC and asked if they would be interested in hiring me.

They said they would so I decided to become a full-time writer and never looked back. That was in 1986 or 1987, something like that.

CMix: Was there one particular moment when you realized you could do it for a living?

PD: People coming to me and asking me to work for them kinda tipped me off. It was primarily when I approached DC to see if they would be interested in me as a writer and they said they were.

If they had said no, that might have been it. I might still be in the sales department at Marvel.

CMix: Did working at Marvel at the time help you make the transition to full-time writer? Did it help to already have your "foot in the door"? (more…)

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‘Watchmen’ Compared: Movie vs. Comics

  • News
  • April 7, 2008

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The biggest question regarding the currently filming adaptation of Watchmen has to be how it will compare to the original comics series, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The comics are some of the most highly regarded works ever created, and so the filmmakers face the task of not only making a quality movie, but also of appeasing fans of the book.

A new report over at Slashfilm takes some new photos from set locations and puts them next to Gibbons’ original art, so fans can decide for themselves how close director Zack Snyder is hewing to the source material. The locations include:

  • Dr. Manhattan’s lab
  • Dr. Manhattan’s apartment
  • Rorschach’s jail cell
  • The Comedian’s apartment
  • Mason’s Auto Repair
  • and the New York City streets

In other Watchmen movie news, ComingSoon has some video from the set, which you can check out right here.

Money, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • April 7, 2008

I started thinking about money.

Well, actually, I probably haven’t stopped thinking about it since the day I realized my daily school lunch would buy me three comic books and one candy bar. But being older yet no more mature, this time around I started thinking about the price of gasoline.

Right after the New York Comic Con, my wife, daughter and I are going to pile into my 2005 Ford Focus hatchback and drive across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana to spend time in Detroit and Chicago. Mostly work, but lucky for me I work with my friends, which is sort of like spending my lunch money on comic books.

Here in Fairfield County Connecticut the price of a gallon of gas is $3.45. It’s about time they dropped that “9/10ths” thing – I’m sure they will when the price of gas goes above $9.99 a gallon. If previous trips (I do this about three or four times a year, mostly for conventions) are any indication, I suspect I’ll be paying about $3.19 a gallon in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The drive, in total, runs about 1800 miles and my Focus gets about 35 miles to the gallon – this is mostly highway driving, so I’ve got the right car for the job. That’s about 52 gallons for the trip, which I figure will run about $170.00 plus tolls. Call it $200.00; if I flew in alone the car rental would cost more, let alone my airfare.

This brings me back to my lunch money. I am so damn old that my school lunch only cost my parents 35 cents, and therefore the comic books I bought with that lunch money only cost a dime (when the price went up to 12 cents, I just stared at the cover as though it said the Communists had just seized control of the drug store). Today, the average cost of the standard format mainstream comic book costs $3.00. That’s a thirty-fold increase. A gallon of gas in the late 10-cent comics era was about 30 cents, so we’ve only suffered a little more than an eleven-fold increase. (more…)

ComicMix Columns for the Week Ending April 6, 2008

  • News
  • April 6, 2008

Hollywood icon Charlton Heston is no longer with us.  Cineleet has a nice overview of his roles in three classic sf movies, but of course he was so much more, both on the screen and in real life.  Whatever one might think of  his politics, the fact that he and his now-widow Lydia were married for 64 years is enough to earn my respect and admiration.  As April is National Poetry Month, feel free to add your poetic thoughts about Heston in the comments section, and don’t forget to check out this past week’s ComicMix columns:

Godspeed, Chuck – not that you need it, you probably have the inside track after all those Biblical epics…

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