Larry Hama joins G.I. Joe Film, Devils Due loses license

News
January 30, 2008

Sure, there have been a lot of recent announcements regarding the live-action G.I. Joe feature film, but they all pale in comparison to this one, folks: Larry Hama, the architect of much of the G.I. Joe mythology for several decades now, will be joining the G.I. Joe film in some capacity!

According to The Latino Review, an announcement is expected later today, but it’s believed that Hama will be a creative consultant for the film.

Hama is well-known for writing the Marvel Comics’ G.I. Joe series that ran for 155 issues (1984-1992). He also wrote the "file cards" on the G.I. Joe action figures produced during that period, and many of the characters are named after Hama’s friends, family and favorite historical figures.

In other G.I. Joe news of note, Devils Due Publishing will not have their contract renewed with Hasbro, owners of the G.I. Joe license.

First reported over at IESB, it’s speculated that Marvel or IDW will receive the license, with IDW the more likely recipient due to their current contract with Hasbro for the Transformers license.

Devils Due was widely regarded as a savior of the G.I. Joe property when they acquired the license in 2001, publishing numerous critically praised stories under the G.I. Joe banner, including the 2006 Snake Eyes: Declassified miniseries.

With the G.I. Joe feature film scheduled for a 2009 release, it appears as if Hasbro is looking to consolidate its film properties with a single publisher, much to the disappointment of G.I. Joe comics fans.

Boondocks Banned?

News
January 30, 2008

It appears as if Boondocks, the popular animated series created by Aaron McGruder, has finally discovered how much (and more importantly, what type of) controversy it takes to get an episode banned. Actually, make that two episodes.

According to this report at Newsarama, two episodes from the current season of Boondocks have been removed from the schedule by Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. Sources say the episodes target key executives at BET, specifically Debra Lee and Reggie Hudlin, the comics writer and former Boondocks producer.

Newsarama provides the following description of the episodes:

The reason for this is two of the planned episodes, “The Huey Freeman Hunger Strike” and “The Ruckus Reality Show” have been pulled. The episodes take savage strikes at not only favorite target BET, but also two of its key executives, Debra Lee and former Boondocks producer Reggie Hudlin. In “Hunger Strike,” Lee is made to look a lot like Dr. Evil from Mike Myers Austin Powers films while “Wedgie Rutland” is depicted as a total toadying nerd. “Hunger Strike” takes even broader strokes at the Black Entertainment Television, implying its true goal is to destroy and/or diminish African-American culture, exemplifying what Chuck D’s statement that the networks letters really stand for the “booty ‘en thugs” network. “Ruckus” takes matters even further, working off the premise that the black-hating Uncle Ruckus is given his own show on BET.

The article also quotes an exclusive report by hip-hop news site HipHopDX on the Boondocks controversy. However, there is wide speculation that the true source of the "rescheduling" command was with the show’s producer, Sony, rather than Adult Swim.

Death, Warmed Over, by Elayne Riggs

News
January 30, 2008

elayne-riggs-100-5281129 As I type this I’m struggling through a pretty bad flu, which I am convinced I contracted on Thursday. That’s when I went for a job interview at the World Financial Center, a hermetically-sealed office and mall complex sandwiched squarely between the Hudson River and the now-cavernous World Trade Center site in downtown Manhattan. I’m unsure whether it was the biting winds or the horrendously long "pedestrian walkway" past the gaping hole of Ground Zero and back to the nearest subway that could get me home now that the Cortlandt Street stations are, it seems, permanently closed, but I haven’t been the same since I shrugged off the interview suit upon my arrival home. The next day Robin met his latest deadline, and we were looking forward to a somewhat active weekend — and then it hit. And it’s still hitting me, and has started hitting him. Funny how, at my age, "lucking out" translates into "thank goodness Robin and I got sick whilst I’m unemployed and he’s between issues!"

But you know, in the back of my head I can’t help but wonder whether I got ill, in part, from breathing in dead people. After all, we all know how the EPA of a government renowned for its repeated lies about everything else also lied to citizens about the air quality in that area. I know it’s over seven years later, but there’s still a ton of construction kicking up dust in that area, and the "walkways" offer scant protection, particularly on a cold and windy day.

Living through 9/11, being in the city the day the towers were attacked, one learns never to take life for granted. This is my 50th It’s All Good column for ComicMix, a milestone number of sorts, and so it seems fitting that I come back around to a subject touched upon in my first column here last February 15, scarcely a month after I’d lost my best friend. In fact, this would have been It’s All Good #51 but for the untimely death of my father. Sometimes the Reaper seems inescapable. Because in the end, of course, it is. And as it touches us all in real life, personally or otherwise (as with Heath Ledger’s recent demise), some of us find much less entertainment and amusement in its fictional counterpart.

(more…)

Get ComicMix Radio to Go!

News
January 29, 2008

ituneslogo300x300-9566231 Starting today, you can subscribe to the ComicMix Radio podcast via iTunes or RSS. Just click on either of the links in the last sentence, or go to the iTunes store and search the podcast section for ComicMIx, and you’ll get Mike Raub and company three times a week, even if you’re not at home to click the button.

Best of all, you can download it to your mp3 player, and have it with you all the time. And those of you with iPhones (including most of the ComicMix staff) can listen to the podcast while reading our comics on the phone. A total experience for the most dedicated and discriminating fan.

So subscribe to our podcasts via or RSS — you’ll be glad you did.

Warren Ellis on Transmetropolitan: The Movie?

News
January 29, 2008

During a recent appearance in the Something Awful forums, writer Warren Ellis fielded some questions from members about the possibility of a film based on one of his most most popular series, Transmetropolitan.

The forums require a paid subscription, but the crew at Comics2Film has posted some of the highlights of the discussion, including the identity of the actor both Ellis and Transmet artist Darick Robertson would like to see don the red-and-green glasses of the series’ main character.

Q: More generally, who do you have in mind doing Spider so that it gets "done right"?

A: Darick and I both favour the idea of Tim Roth playing Spider.

Ellis also dismisses the rumor that Patrick Stewart, a fan of the series, will play the role of Spider in any form whatsoever.

Y: The Last Man to be a Film Trilogy?

News
January 29, 2008

USA Today reports that the director of the big-screen adaptation of Y: The Last Man, D.J. Caruso, plans to break up the story of the last man on Earth into several parts.

According to Caruso, the first film of what is likely to become a trilogy will focus on the storyline of issues #1-14 of the series. Caruso added that he has had "preliminary discussions" with Shia LaBeouf to play Yorick Brown, the story’s main character.

Caruso was the director of another LaBeouf film, Disturbia. The screenwriter for that film, Carl Ellsworth, is also attached to the Y project.

According to Caruso, "The most important thing and the reason I want to do this is … I don’t want to say it’s the end of the innocence, but it’s actually a man-child who has to become a real man now."

"I think it’s a really simple, beautiful theme, but at the same time, the movie’s really pop-culture entertainment," Caruso told USA Today.

Marvel, EA Games Part Ways

News
January 29, 2008

Marvel Comics and videogame developer Electronic Arts have agreed to disagree, it seems, and parted ways after only one game collaboration.

According to a report on GameTap, EA has doscontinued production of the second game it planned to develop with Marvel properties. The two entities had partnered in 2004 to produce games based on Marvel’s stable of characters, but the only game to result from this partnership, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, was largely considered a bust.

"EA and Marvel have jointly agreed to discontinue development of the Marvel titles under the EA Games Label. This was a business decision based on EA’s portfolio strategy," an EA representative told GameTap.

Marvel also issued a statement, claiming that the dissolution of the partnership "will not affect Marvel’s ongoing plans to release fighting games based on the Marvel properties in the future."

Haunting GrimJack

News
January 29, 2008

Is one body better than none? Find out in this week’s all-new, full-color episode of GrimJack: The Manx Cat, by John Ostrander and Timothy Truman.

Cap Invades the Media, ComicMix Radio Yields the Shield

Podcasts
January 29, 2008

Now available through ITunes (for free!), ComicMix Radio kicks off the week covering all the other cool comics out this week besides Captain America and a nice stack of new DVDs, too.

Plus:

Walking Dead celebrates #50 with a variant that might be tough to find
Northworld jumps to Oni Press
The WGA gives a GO to The Grammys

Cap Is having a tough week, so please Press The Button!

Or subscribe to our podcasts via or RSS!

Brian K. Vaughan on Lost and Y: the Last Man

News
January 29, 2008

bkv-5761346 Another day, another tease regarding this week’s season premiere of Lost and the impending end of Y: The Last Man.

New York Magazine‘s pop culture blog, Vulture, posted this brief interview with writer Brian K. Vaughan about his uber-popular television and comics projects. The interview provides some context for Vaughan’s decision to off one of the series’ main characters in a recent issue, as well as some insight regarding his favorite characters.

All of that, and some thoughts on the possibility of a spin-off series:

No. I am truly washing my hands. Unless I’m in really dire financial straits and I have to do an Ampersand the Monkey spinoff.

As far as the passengers of Oceanic Flight 813, Vaughan manages to keep the secrets of Lost Season Four, well… secret. And for good reason:

I think if I were to answer too specifically, a future version of myself would appear and assassinate me.

Lost airs Thursday, Jan. 31 on ABC at 8 PM (EST).

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