The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Review: ‘Secret Invasion Saga’

secinv-4353522A few years back, DC released the super-thick, super-cheap Countdown to Infinite Crisis to lead into the company’s massive Infinite Crisis event. In addition to recapping the years’ worth of hints that led to Crisis, the issue also contained some crucially important events, including the death of Ted Kord (Blue Beetle).

Marvel now has pulled that page out of the summer-event book, releasing Secret Invasion Saga last week as a free lead-in to the looming Secret Invasion of the Skrulls. While I can’t argue about the price, the content was more than a little underwhelming. In fact, I fell asleep while reading it. Twice.

Instead of actually telling a story, this issue is essentially a whole bunch of material culled from the Marvel Encyclopedia (look under "Skrull"). In one of the world’s longest internal monologues, Iron Man thinks over all the events that have led to this point (the reveal of Elektra as a Skrull, etc.). He covers the latest interstellar goings on from Annihilation and Skrull history as well.

While it’s nice to get a primer on things, the issue is extremely high on text and completely bereft of any new developments. If Marvel was planning on hooking new readers to the event, there’s no big eye-grabber here. They may have made some fans among insomniacs.

Between this, the grammar-unfriendly "Who do you trust?" marketing blitz and that bizarre Blair Witch-like video, Marvel’s off to a bit of a rough start to the Skrull invasion. Of course, they could probably shoot themselves in the foot and it would still sell like hot cakes with golden frosting.

Hope versus Fear, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • March 10, 2008
 
You don’t have to have read superhero comics for any great length of time before you get the message: perseverance plus righteousness will defeat the enemy every time. Despite the “maturation” of commercial comic books, this essential message remains at the core of the superhero concept.
 
Turn on your television set and listen to our government’s message. If you disagree with their policies, you don’t understand the fact that there are monsters trying to get us. If we don’t torture anybody we like, we will have another 9-11. If we don’t wiretap anybody we like, we will have another 9-11. If we don’t give AT&T and Verizon a pass on their illegal activities, we will have another 9-11. If we speak out against the Iraq War, we don’t support our troops and therefore we will have another 9-11.
 
To justify this, they point to incidents that are massively exaggerated or outright lies. That gas attack on the New York subway system? It was bullshit. The attempt to blow up Fort Dix? That was, quite literally, a pissed off pizza delivery guy and a couple of his friends from the Mack Sennett lot. In Florida, the government busted seven childish wannabees for conspiring with “Al Qaeda” (actually, with undercover agents) in an attempt to blow up Sears Tower in Chicago – it seems that one of the seven was briefly employed there. Our evidence that they were master terrorists? They had been bopping around in public wearing homemade military uniforms and turbans, and they asked an undercover agent for boots (they supplied shoe sizes), machine guns and $50,000 in cash. Even idiots can pose a threat, but busting these clowns doesn’t justify waterboarding or preemptive military strikes.
 
Yes, we have real enemies out there and we need to deal with them in an effective manner. I’m not to trivializing it in the least by saying the threat requires police actions: detective work, and fairly routine detective work at that. The type the FBI has found fairly effective these past many decades. Abandoning everything that makes America America is not effective; it is surrender.
 

(more…)

ComicMix Columns for the Week Ending Mar. 9, 2008

  • News
  • March 9, 2008

Where does the time go?  Why does nobody complain about having an extra hour to sleep in the autumn?  And does anyone really feel the need to answer rhetorical questions?  Our weekly ComicMix columnists may not have the answers, but they still make for good reading on a truncated Sunday:

And don’t forget our special ComicMix TV broadcast covering the midnight release of the Dark Tower comic sequel!  Now can that wind stop howling please?  Some of us are trying to catch an afternoon kip.

ComicMix at MegaCon ’08

  • News
  • March 9, 2008

Anyone who thought that MegaCon was a small secondary gathering of Florida area comics and fantasy/anime fans could not have been more mistaken.  I was one of about 30,000 people at the Orange County Convention Center (that figure does not include artists, writers and exhibitors).

To give you an idea of what the scene was like, there was even a huge line of people still waiting to get in an hour before the show closed Friday night.

Friday, I was lucky enough to get in early with the exhibitor crowd thanks to ComicMix friend and top-notch retailer Jamie Graham of Chicago’s Graham Gracker Comics and was able to get in on the pre-show activity.  Anime played a HUGE part in MegaCon this year, with not only hundreds of fans dressed as their favorite characters, but displays of everything from DVDs to popular Japanese snacks — including the unoffical treat of anime fans, Pocky. There was even someone who dressed as the snack.

Comics played their part in MegaCon as well, with appearances that ranged from creators such as Darwyn Cooke, Dick Giordano, Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, David Finch and Mark Waid to some of the most innovative and revolutionary indie and webcomic publishers in the scene.

Pop culture was represented by guests that spanned over four decades, ranging from John Provost (Timmy from Lassie) to Adrian Pasdar (Nick Petrelli from Heroes).

There’s a small photo gallery after the jump, and we have an interview with Heroes star Pasdar hitting ComicMix this week.

Oh, and special thanks to new MegaCon owner Beth Widera! (more…)

Random Video: Teller vs. the Zombies of Vegas

  • Uncategorized
  • March 9, 2008

 

Magician/comedian Teller (of Penn and Teller fame) recently produced this short film about the potential impact of a zombie outbreak on the denizens of Las Vegas. It’s a great indication that the silent half of the Penn and Teller duo might be just as funny if he said something once in a while.

While all of the Living Dead films have shown us what happens to the no-name John and Jane Does of the world, what about the performers? Who will live? Who will die? Who will play the Tuesday night show?

 

& Teller

Add to My Profile | More Videos

ComicMix Broadcast Blog: Indie Online and New York Comic Con

  • News
  • March 9, 2008

Our process here is simple – at the end of every weekend we clear off our desk and give you the links for things we’ve covered recently on ComicMix Radio. Ready to click?

Add Jonathan Hickman’s  all new miniseries, Pax Romana, to the list of cool indie comics now available online. Here is the first issue. Jonathan hopes it inspires you to go seek out the second issue which hit comic stores last week.

ABC announced the creation of Stage 9 Digital Media, a separate creative studio dedicated to producing original series for the Internet. Their  first project, Squeeges, is available here . The 10-episode series was created by a comedy troupe that calls itself “Handsome Donkey.” New episodes  will appear on ABC.com and on YouTube each Monday and Friday. Other projects in the works include a sci-fi thriller called Trenches from Shane Felux (creator of fan film Star Wars: Revelations). Meanwhile, more Hollywood talent is jumping to the online world. Actress Justine Bateman (Family Ties), writer/producer Jill Kushner (The Ellen DeGeneres Show), Peter Murrieta (Wizards of Waverly Place) and Alan Sereboff (Snowblind) are working on an original web video portal.

Get ready for a big career move as cable network Chiller is once again hosting the “Dare to Direct Contest” where fans are invited to write, produce and submit short horror films. Prizes and the chance to be featured on Chiller’s 2008 Dare to Direct to Direct Film Festival on Halloween night will go to the finalists and winners. All contest rules and information can be found at Dare2Direct.com.

Michael Agrusso, comic book action figure director, has put together a trio of videos to help promote the New York Comic Con. See them here. Meanwhile, the NY Con itself has produced new guest lists that include a huge Artist Alley, reserved for comic book and pop culture creators — both legendary as well as emerging — and including Mark Buckingham, C.B. Cebulski, Colleen Doran, Danny Fingeroth, Keith Giffen, Bob Layton, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Monte Moore, Rags Morales, John Romita, Jr., Jim Shooter, and Jim Valentino. New additions are added almost daily and the complete listing is available.

This week on ComicMix Radio, find out a few interesting tidbits about the upcoming end of DC’s weekly series Countdown from the guy at the center of it all, Keith Giffen, plus some interesting notes from MegaCon, the list of new comics and DVDs previewed, and more.

Got a busy week coming up? Don’t miss anything by subscribing to ComicMix Radio on  badgeitunes61x15dark-5241029 or RSS right now!

 

No, You’re Outta Order…!, by Ric Meyers

  • News
  • March 9, 2008
 
sleuth-5977955DVD special features are an invaluable tool for aspiring filmmakers. In addition to the discs that let you reedit sequences, there are many who simply present the filmmakers’ points of view in such a clever, informative, interesting, and edifying way that volumes can be learned with even a cursory viewing.
 
Cases in point: this week’s selections – both scheduled to break into home entertainment sites and shops this coming Tuesday. First there’s Sleuth, a fascinating but ultimately unnecessary remake of the original 1972 movie adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s hit Broadway who-what-why-where-dunnit. Not that you could blame anyone involved for wanting to be a part of the action. First they get the two movie Alfies, Michael Caine and Jude Law, to star, then get award-winning playwright Harold Pinter to adapt the screenplay, then secure master showman Kenneth Branagh to direct.
 
Only one problem … like Presumed Innocent before it, the pulpy delights of Sleuth don’t  really benefit from grade A veneer. At its heart, it’s an old-fashioned, now somewhat wheezy, puzzle pic. But that’s just the movie. It’s the extras on the disc that make this purchase worthwhile. The “making of” doc is fine, but nothing extraordinary. The short “Make-up Secrets Revealed” featurette is okay, although abrupt. But the commentaries really deliver the goods.
 
If you read the back cover, it gives the impression that there is one commentary with director Branagh and stars Caine and Law. But actually there are two commentaries: one with Branagh and Caine, and the other with co-star/co-producer Law. That makes all the difference, because the play and films are a two-man show. The whole plot is predicated on which man’s point of view you take or believe. So it’s inadvertently brilliant that you listen to Caine’s p.o.v. on one track, and Law’s on another. You not only appreciate the movie’s story, but the making of the movie’s story, from their two different, unique, points of view. And Branagh is no slouch either in the creativity department, either.
 
Besides, I love Michael Caine’s work, and the commentary allows him to be there in the room with you, having a pleasant (albeit one-sided) chat about film, life, acting, and et al. The fact that Caine was also in the original 1972 version, playing the Jude Law role, is just icing on the cake. 
 

(more…)

On This Day: Rick Burchett

  • News
  • March 9, 2008

Comic book artist Rick Burchett was born in 1952. He originally worked in advertising in St. Louis, Missouri but was always a comic book fan. In the early 1980s he switched to comics professionally and worked for several smaller comic book publishers before joining DC.

His first DC title was Blackhawk, but that was quickly followed by Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and others. Burchett has won two Eisner Awards, for his art on The Batman and Robin Adventures and Batman: The Gotham Adventure.

His most recent work has been on Marvel’s She-Hulk.

 

Allan Turner’s Folklife Treasures, by Michael H. Price

  • News
  • March 9, 2008
 
roun1866_cover-1074035The measurable results of bare-knuckled research, like gold and luck, will turn up where you find ’em. Folks often think of cultural research in academic terms – the ivory-tower stereotype, alone in the realm of uninterrupted thought and empirical fact-sifting, or the aloof egghead at large amongst the tribes – but a truer basis must rest with the very folks whose thoughts and dreams and deeds form the foundations of any popular culture.
 
Or should the term be populist, as opposed to popular, culture? No matter – the root word means “of the people,” in any event. And some of the most lasting such research has come from the efforts of working-civilian folks whose interest in the down-to-earth lives of other folks drives them to venture among the masses with a companionable attitude, laden with note-pads and recording devices, to take down impressions for the long term. (Pete Seeger has a good term for such excursions, research-driven or not: “a political vacation.”)
 
The Allan Turner Collection at the University of Texas provides a memorable example of this people-to-people imperative. The namesake of the archive is a news-biz colleague of long standing, and several of these conversational interviews date from a collaborative push that Turner and I accomplished during the 1970s and ’80s. 
 
Deep-rooted sources of this influence include Thomas Edison (1847–1931). Eager to popularize and perfect his version of the 19th-century phonograph, Edison reconciled note-taking anthropological research with sound-recording technology by sending crews far afield, into the streets, to capture the crowd noises and pushcart-vendor cries of the turning of a century.
 
Then, in a more focused campaign of the early-middle 20th century, the father-and-son team of John and Alan Lomax concentrated upon the preservation of American folk music – starting with the songs of prison inmates and field-hands in the Deep, Deeper and Deepest South. Alan Lomax (1915–2002) helped in particular to forge new commercial possibilities for traditional folk-singing during the 1950s and ’60s – advancing a Voice of the People urgency during the reactionary post-WWII years, on the one hand, and arguing the case for a purer folkloric expressiveness during the 1960s’ craze for a more commercialized dilution of folk-singing.
 

  (more…)

The Science of Comics: Batman’s Gliding

  • News
  • March 8, 2008

The Dark Knight is overlooking the city from the ledge of a towering skyscraper when he spies a violent crime occurring in the streets below. Without even the hint of a pause, he jumps off the top of the building and uses his his outstretched cape to swoop down onto the crowd of evil-doers.

That familiar scene has been one of the staples of comic books for which readers have long suspended disbelief. But maybe fiction isn’t too far from reality. Could this be done? The ComicMix mythbusters say yes!

How, you ask? Well, just watch this footage of a mountain wingsuit. Substitute the gothic architecture of Gotham City for the mountains, and you have one impressive, bat-shaped figure ready to glide down from the night sky and strike fear into the hearts of a superstitious, cowardly lot of criminals.

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks