Some important Wolverine casting news and our list of late comics end the year and ComicMix Radio covers it all!
Plus:
• Marv Wolfman comes back to The Titans – sort of
• Mark Waid splits from The Flash
• The Justice League director may not "get it"
And Sean McKeever shares what he enjoyed reading in 2007.
Press The Button now and we promise to save you from Zombie Dick Clark!
On this day in 1967 — well, actually, on Stardate 4523.3, but you get the idea — Cyrano Jones sold Lt. Uhuru an adorable little fur ball of the species polygeminus grex that quickly began to multiply like a rabbit on steroids. The creatures found their way into every nook and cranny of Deep Space Station K-7 and the visiting Enterprise, endangering the crew and their mission in the premiere of "The Trouble With Tribbles."
Of course, the concept was revisited in 1996’s Deep Space Nine episode, "Trials and Tribble-lations". Here’s a brief comparison between the two episodes:
And remember, when you’re up to your ass in tribbles, your initial assignment was to poison the grain.
A Tribble is expected to have a cameo in the upcoming Star Trek prequel movie.
The Financial Times reports that the United Nations Office for Partnerships will be working with Marvel Comics to create "a comic book set in a fictional war-torn country with superheroes working alongside UNICEF aid workers and U.N peacekeepers."
Notes UPI somewhat sarcastically, the partnership is designed in part to bolster the UN’s "international image damaged by the unilateral diplomatic efforts of some Western countries by teaching children the value of international cooperation."
And by "some Western countries, " read "the scary guy with the mustache who wants to lop off the building’s top ten floors yet somehow got a recess appointment to be our ambassador to the organization, and who was forced out in deserved disgrace about a year ago." The UN hopes to distribute the comics to about 1 million US children initially, and one can only hope Spider-Man & co. are more powerful than Ornery Moustache Dude.
Geez, this is the week for medium birthdays, isn’t it?
On this day in 1923, Russian scientist Vladimir Zworykin, working for Westinghouse, filed the patent on his "television system," laying the groundwork for the one of the most powerful cultural forces of the late 20th-century.
Didn’t you always suspect television was a Russian plot?
Pastiche overwrought;
Keep Wikipedia near.
When I was a girl, I’d spend New Years Eve watching my parents get dressed up to go out. My sister and I would be in our pajamas, and my mom would put on her make-up with extra care. Lipstick and perfume. We’d wave as they went away, and then try to get the baby-sitter to let us have extra popcorn, or stay up until midnight. In the morning, we’d go downstairs to breakfast and find noise-makers and gilded hats made out of cardboard, souvenirs of the party. It seemed so glamorous. At my parents’ suggestion, my sister and I would make New Year resolutions. I’m not sure if this was to better ourselves, or to keep us quiet on a hung-over morning, but it was fun.
On this day in 1895, the Lumiere Brothers opened the world’s first movie theater at Paris. Their opening night feature is a collection of 46-second shorts, including the riveting verite masterpiece ‘Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory.’
Gene Shalit raves, calling it one of the best films of the year.
Blue Pills was previously published in Europe, where it won the Premios La Carcel de Papel in Spain and the Polish Jury Prize at Angouleme. It has sold over 20,000 copies in its original French edition, and now Houghton Mifflin is publishing it in the United States. This graphic novel by Frederik Peeters is a personal memoir of his relationship with a woman and her young son, both HIV positive. Intimate, emotional, deeply personal, it’s exactly the kind of story I thought I wouldn’t like.
I was wrong.
Let’s start with the main thing I thought I wouldn’t like: the artwork. Peeters uses a very blunt line, without a lot of detail. The impression is rough rather than smooth, sketchy rather than finished. The pages are, for the most part, variations on the six-panel grid. It doesn’t feel like something that can easily convey complex feelings, and yet, cumulatively, it does. (more…)
Next Wednesday, The Late Show With David Letterman will become the first television show back on the air with its full writing staff. Letterman’s Worldwide Pants company, producers of both The Late Show and The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, successfully negotiated a new contract with the Writers Guild of America.
Whereas other talk shows will be returning to the air – Jay Leno the same day, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert the following Monday – Letterman and Ferguson will be allowed to use opening monologues and the continuing bits such as The Top 10 list that have constituted a large part of their appeal. Leno and the rest will not be able to use recurring segments and will have to ad-lib their shows until they, too, reach a settlement.
Letterman followed a strategy employed by his mentor (and, later, his writer) Johnny Carson back during the 1988 strike. The WGA is likely to use deal-points agreed to as a template for further negotiations.
To prove the studios still don’t understand a damn thing, they released a statement today that striking writers have "lost" the battle because they now lost more in salary and benefits than they hoped to gain from negotiations. In my opinion, with such a limited and asinine view of the situation the WGA strike will likely drag on for a while.
Seems that Christmas entertainment is not without its controversy even in an officially Christian country like the UK.
On the heels of the massive ratings success of this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned," which garnered a 50% share of the total British TV audience (increasing to 55% at its peak), an obscure group with way too much un-Christ-like anger (think the UK equivalent of crazy Bill Dohonue’s Catholic League) has complained about the portrayal of the Doctor as a savior figure as "completely inappropriate." Why this complaint wasn’t lodged at the end of Series Three (see photo) is beyond me.
In addition, Millvina Dean, the last living survivor of the Titanic disaster, criticized the episode sight-unseen, saying "I think it is disrespectful to make entertainment of such a tragedy." No word on whether she made the same complaint to James Cameron a few years back.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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