The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Interview: Paul Karasik Deconstructs Fletcher Hanks Revamp

  • News
  • March 17, 2008

One of the surprise hits in comics last year was I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets, a collection of stories from Fletcher Hanks, a largely unknown comics creator in the Golden Age who is best described as "the Ed Wood of comics."

The bizarre tales – most featured "space wizard" Stardust, who came up with ever more creative and creepy means of dispatching villains – ended up a critical success, with the book making many "best of" lists, including my own.

The renewed attention to Hanks (his bizarre personal story is recounted with skill in an addendum at the back of I Shall Destroy) recently took another step, as Joe Keatinge and Mike Allred teamed up for an all-new Stardust story featured in the recent debut of Image Comics’ Next Issue Project #1.

Given this surge of attention in Hanks’ work, we thought it would be interesting to catch up with Paul Karasik, who edited I Shall Destroy and contributed the original Hanks background story to the volume.

Let’s just say he wasn’t happy with the new incarnation.

COMICMIX: The works of Fletcher Hanks, and Stardust particularly, have very much lingered in people’s minds and, as the success of I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets shows, retain a substantial appeal. Why do you think that is?

PAUL KARASIK: Fletcher Hanks is a master stylist and people are first attracted to style. Once you know what a Hanks story looks like you can always spot his work. In fact, this is one of the reasons I find it amazing that his work was not "discovered" years ago.

In fact, it seemed to me that many readers of I Shall Destory All the Civilized Planets were intrigued by the discovery aspect of my project. Not only was the work of a major comic book artist uncovered, but there was also a true-life mystery surrounding it all.

Finally, readers simply love the twisted quality of these brutal tales of maniacal retribution.

CMix: Given how dated those comics are and the idiosyncrasies of Hanks’ vision, should those comics be resuscitated by new creators?

PK: I can’t imagine a single reason to recreate Hanks’ work. It’s the same idea as remaking films you liked when you were younger. The impulse is fundamentally flawed and the results are categorically disastrous. (more…)

South Korean Comic Labeled Anti-Semitic

  • News
  • March 17, 2008

The international comics scene is always interesting to keep an eye on, with bizarre stories cropping up every now and again. In that vein comes the news that the U.S. State Department made a report criticizing a South Korean comic book for being anti-Semitic.

According to the report, which was later presented to Congress, the book is the American volume of the Far Country, Neighbor Country series, according to this story in the Chosun newspaper. The series is intended for South Korean children, and it gives brief histories in comic book form of various countries around the world.

In the article, the anti-Semitic passages are listed as explaining the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks being caused by Muslims who hate the United States because "Jews use money and public discussion as weapons to make WASPs do what they want."

Here’s a few panels:

The article continued:

The series, written by Rhie Won-bok, a professor at Duksung Women’s University, was designed to teach youngsters the history and culture of other countries in comic book format. The "best-selling" children’s book series sold more than 10 million Korean-language copies, according to the report.

The report cited two examples of anti-Semitism in the book. One comic strip shows a newspaper, a magazine, a television, and a radio, each with a Star of David, and is captioned, "In a word, American public debate belongs to the Jews, and it’s no exaggeration to say that [U.S. media] are the voices of the Jews."

Another strip shows a man climbing a hill and then facing a brick wall inscribed with a Star of David and a STOP sign. The caption reads, "The final obstacle [to success] is always a fortress called Jews."

The author later acknowledged his mistake and pledged to write "in a more responsible way," the report said. In March 2007, the book’s publisher agreed to pull the controversial book from stores, the report added.

Like I said, lots of strange stuff here. For instance, it strikes me as strange to see anti-Semitism appear somewhere like South Korea. Also, I had no idea that the State Department’s duties include keeping tabs on anti-Semitism.

Kristen Kreuk to Briefly Return for Eighth Season of ‘Smallville’

  • News
  • March 17, 2008

ComicMix previously reported that Smallville will be returning for an eighth season on The CW Network, but how many members of the principle cast will stay on board? Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) has already stated he won’t be returning for any future seasons and now Kristen Kreuk is scaling back her involvement with the show.

Kreuk posted a message on her Facebook account detailing her involvement with Season Eight:

So, I thought I would give those of you curious about Smallville a brief debrief. I am in Bangkok for a few more months. So, no shooting of the Ville for me. I will return for a undetermined, although small, number of episodes in season 8.

I am not really opening up the floor for lots of discussion, because it is not really the place for it. Obviously I have loved my time on the show, but I am equally as thrilled to move on to new endeavors. One of which is very dear to me, and that is GBD [Girls By Design]. So thank you all for your really fabulous support and passion!!! I hope this clears up most of the questions…

At this rate, the eighth season of the show will only feature Clark and Chloe. In other words, it will be a great season.

(via Krypton Site)

Demons of Sherwood: Zombie Panic!

  • News
  • March 17, 2008

In today’s brand-new episode of Demons of Sherwood by Robert Tinnell and Bo Hampton, there’s no rest for the wicked. Instead, they rise from their graves and come after our heroes.  How do you outrun a set of teeth?

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

More: Demons of Sherwood

 

 

linklogo2-9499115

Mike Richardson on Dark Horse/Universal Partnership

  • News
  • March 17, 2008

Last week, we brought you news of the big partnership between Dark Horse Comics and Universal Studios.

Over at CBR, Jeffrey Renaud chats with Dark Horse founder and president Mike Richardson about the deal, and touches on a few of the Dark Horse properties that could end up on the big screen.

When offered Gerard Way’ s popular "Umbrella Academy" series as an option, Richardson answered, "’Umbrella Academy’ will obviously be high on the radar of the early projects but again, we’ve just completed the deal and now we are preparing the first projects.

Read the full interview over at CBR.

 

(via Journalista)

 

Being A Sport, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • March 17, 2008

You might not have realized it, but this is the time of year when more Americans engage in more illegal activity than just about any other. Nope; it’s not drunk driving or tax cheating, it’s March Madness… and the crime is called gambling.

Studies suggest March Madness is the high school student’s portal to gambling. On-the-job productivity plummets. An estimated $2.4 billion dollars will be put on the line against the law, some of it with organized crime – which wouldn’t be the case if it were legal, unless you are like me and you consider bankers to be their own strain of organized crime.

I’ll admit, I don’t get it. I don’t have the gambling gene (or maybe I’m just too cheap), and I’m at best a second-tier sports fan. I follow hockey and I follow the Iditarod because being a hockey fan isn’t as weird as it used to be. I follow the Chicago Cubs because as a native northside Chicagoan I am compelled to do so. Much like Yankee fans, we believe that there’s some issue of “sports” involved with the team. And that’s pretty much it. My lifetime contribution to sports-related at-risk financial endeavors is zilch.

But I am a comics fan and a student of our culture. So I wonder, with all this interest in sports and all this money changing hands, why hasn’t there been a successful sports-themed comic book series?

(more…)

ComicMix Columns for the Week Ending March 16, 2008

  • News
  • March 16, 2008

Can it be?  Is convention season well and truly underway?  No, I’m not ready yet!  Need job first!  Hello to everyone at WizWorld LA, LunaCon and everywhere else I can’t afford to be.  At least I and our other weekly ComicMix columnists can engage you from the comparative safety of our home keyboards:

Forecast for the last half of March: more pavement-pounding, but at least it won’t be in the snow any more!

ComicMix at WWLA: The Screenwriter’s Panel

  • News
  • March 16, 2008

Sunday, Day Two at Wizard World in LA and this time around its the Screenwriter’s panel. Moderator Rickey Purdin introduced a distinguished group of successful screenwriters including Mark Verheiden, Carl Ellsworth, John Cox and Zak Penn. With the intros finished, Purdin launched into a short video montage featuring clips from some of the projects the members of the panel had written.

Some of these clips included scenes from The Mask, X-Men 2, Disturbia, Smallville, Red Eye and Battlestar Galactica. Following the clips, Purdin started in on the questions for the panel.

First up, how each of the writers got their various starts in the "business."

Cox started it off saying that, infortunately, he didn’t have a “sexy story" to tell. Instead, like many others, he went to film school with the intention of being a director. However, he soon found out that directing was “too much like working for a living" and decided to switch to screenwriting.

“My story is pretty sexy,” joked Penn. “I was a stripper for a couple of years. It’s a weird job. It was in a female strip club and I was the only guy there, and I stood out.”

"No, I’m joking. Obviously," he continued. "Actually, I got really lucky and wrote Last Action Hero pretty much right out of college and then sold it pretty fast. So that was it for me." (more…)

Gary Panter on ‘Omega: The Unknown’

  • News
  • March 16, 2008

Over at Marvel.com, Sean T. Collins interviews "punk comics" legend Gary Panter, who will be providing interior art for an upcoming issue of Jonathan Lethem’s Omega: The Unknown.

Panter’s ridiculously impressive resume includes work for everyone from Frank Zappa to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, designing the set for the children’s television series/weekly acid trip Pee Wee’s Playhouse, a prominent teaching position at New York’s School of Visual Arts and, among other things, a freakin’ Emmy Award.

See? I told you it was an impressive resume.

Marvel.com: What exactly will you be drawing for the series? I believe you’re providing the art that within the story is being drawn by Omega himself, right?

Gary Panter: Omega draws his own origin story in the form of a wordless comic. I draw it for him. At first I was going to draw it with really jagged lines like the punky stuff I did in the ’70s, but I decided to draw kind of like I draw these days, but even a little more retarded than usual. I figured that a [super hero] could probably draw [as well] as me, without trying very hard, but I didn’t want to draw it exactly like the other comics I’m drawing these days. I wanted it to be kind of like old Marvel comics, but spazzier.

Omega: The Unknown #7 will hit shelves on April 2.

 

Gattaca Tales, by Ric Meyers

  • News
  • March 16, 2008

southlandtales-7316063Well, it’s SF week at the ol’ DVD Xtra. Not sci-fi week, but SF week, using the “official” contraction sanctified by the Science Fiction Writers of America, of which I was once a member. Now, if I were considering the likes of I Robot and/or I am Legend – two Will Smith vehicles adapted from far superior books – then maybe it would be sci-fi week. But, no, I’m reviewing two wildly divergent films – one totally out of control and one totally in control – that best exemplify the “genre of ideas.”

As virtually almost always, the studios green-light these projects then never really know what to do with them or how to market them. So, while both these releases should have been (and would have benefited greatly from being) glutted with special features the way Will Smith’s DVDs are, they’re both a tad light in the digital loafers (as it were). The lightest, and the most needy, is Southland Tales, another ready-made cult classic created by writer/director Richard Kelly, who had already given the world Donnie Darko<span style=”font-style:

normal”>.

Anybody involved had to know what they were getting here. It’s not like the whole thing was improvised. In fact, during the thirty minute “making of” doc called “USIDent  TV: Surveilling the Southland,” actors professed to not being able to understand the long script but signing on anyway. If any film needed an audio commentary, this one does, but it doesn’t have one. Instead, the half-hour behind-the-scenes featurette skims over a wide range of approaches – from actor interviews to set decoration to stunt detailing. Richard Kelly is much in evidence, however, vainly trying to defend and detail his base-level Dr. Strangelovian funhouse of a film.

Here, again, is where DVDs can improve the viewing experience. In theaters, Kelly’s overstuffed confection would, and did, become fairly intolerable. But taken in DVD chunks (or chapters, if you will), the futuristic action mystery musical dramedy can even be enjoyable … if only to marvel at Kelly’s hubris, and the huge cast who agreed to participate. Even as a game of  “spot the cult fave,” the film can be fun. There’s the Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, Christopher Lambert, Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Kevin Smith, Curtis Armstrong (Booger!), and Janeane Garofalo, as well as a bunch of past and future Saturday Night Livers and Mad–TVers.

(more…)

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks