The Mix : What are people talking about today?
Two Girls And A Lot Of Magic….
When you stop to think about it, there are a lot of similarities in the stories of Dorothy and Alice and now the connection is much deeper than we ever imagined. The critically acclaimed indy series Oz – Wonderland Chronicles might have passed you by, take a minute for ComicMix Radio as we preview the title with one of the creators. Plus:• It’s finally a Merry Middle Earth Christmas
• Got an idea for a super heroine? Shadowline is listening!
• It’s seven-in-a-row for The X-Men arc "The Messiah Complex"
Press The Button now, and pass the eggnog!
The Ambiguously Gay Duo Save Christmas
It’s the Saturday before Christmas, and this is a comic book site, so we’re obligated to show this:
The Sweetest Gift, by Martha Thomases
Over a month ago, I was assigned to find out each presidential candidate’s favorite super-hero or heroine. It seemed like it would be a fun assignment, a chance to find a bit of insight into how pop culture affects politics and vice versa.
Alas, only Ron Paul felt self-confident enough to answer our question. I was impressed that not only did Dr. Paul know one super-hero from another, but he also knew one creator from another, specifically citing Paul Pope’s version of Batman.
Why didn’t the other candidates respond? John Tebbel thinks it’s because the race is so close that no one wants to risk saying something stupid that will alienate a segment of voters needed to gain percentages in the early primaries and caucuses. Can the Marvel vs. DC split be so wide? Do indy fans resent superhero fans this much? I don’t think so.
Or maybe the question is considered too goofy for a future President of the most powerful country in the world. However, in the last few days, I’ve heard how the candidates like their coffee and what their least favorite food is.
I’ve had to conclude that these candidates simply don’t read comics, or graphic novels, or the funny pages. Therefore, in the Spirit of the Season, I’ve decided to recommend the following:
Mike Huckabee: This Baptist minister turned Governor of Arkansas seems like a personable guy. His story about losing 100 pounds is inspirational, and he seems, in interviews, to be a friendly sort. However, as he’s climbed in the polls, he’s become disturbingly more evangelical about the role of religion in public life, especially the federal government. It would do him good to read Garth Ennis’ and Steve Dillon’s Preacher: Gone to Texas.
A super Christmas spectacular
What do you do with your Christmas lights?
Forbes Picks McDuck
Forbes Magazine is out with their fairly annual list of the wealthiest 15 fictional characters, and our pal Scrooge is on top of the list.
Forbes offers complete explanations and profiles of each choice, and they’re a hoot. But I’ll get ahead of you on the #4 choice: Mom isn’t your mom or Dave Letterman’s mom; it’s Mom from Futurama.
The list:1. Scrooge McDuck
2. Ming The Merciless
3. Richie Rich
4. Mom
5. Jed Clampett
6. C. Montgomery Burns
7. Carter Pewterschmidt
8. Bruce Wayne
9. Thurston Howell III
10. Tony Stark
11. Fake Steve Jobs
12. Gomez Addams
13. Willy Wonka
14. Lucius Malfoy
15. Princess Peach
For pragmatic reasons, Santa Claus was eliminated from the list. According to many Forbes readers, Santy ain’t fictional – and our economy is going swell.
Torchwood Two Trailer
Over at Freema Agyeman’s eponymous site, she’s posted a trailer for an episode of Torchwood‘s second series (or season, as they call it on this side of the pond) in which she appears. Here’s a portion of a still from that episode:
Agyeman’s site also links to what she calls "the TARDIS Friends Network," consisting so far of the eponymous sites of David Tennant and Billie Piper.
In other Torchwood news, Series Two will also be airing specially-edited repeats of each episode which will be deemed more suitable for families and kids and, well, me. Honestly, all this bed-hopping is driving me dizzy. In further news, BBC America is still not available on our cable system, so it’s rather a moot point from this end.
Manga Friday: In Medias Res
We all want to get on the ground floor, but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, we find ourselves walking into a movie two reels in, munching popcorn and whispering to each other “And who is that guy?” In honor of those confused moments in all of our lives, this week Manga Friday read Book Two in a short stack of manga series, and tried to figure out what the heck was going on.
First off is Spiral: The Bounds of Reasoning. The division into volumes is a bit odd here, since the first section of Vol. 2 is the third and final part of a locked-room mystery. So we get that old-fashioned mystery-plot staple: the detective explaining everything and talking at great length to all of the characters, who wonder why he’s gathered them all there. It’s very talky, of course – that’s the whole point of that kind of exercise – but it summarizes the first two parts of this particular story well enough for me to understand the ending.
After that are two one-part stories and then a two-parter, which explain a bit more about the premise, and expand out the cast a bit. The detective from the first story is a teenager named Ayumu Narumi, and he’s the other stereotyped manga teen boy: the uber-competent whiz kid (as opposed to the amiable slacker – no manga teens that I’ve seen are just pretty good at a couple of things). He’s both a deductive genius and a world-class pianist, but is tortured because he’s not as good at either of those things as his older brother, who disappeared mysteriously (swell ominous music).
The antagonists are a group called the Blade Children; we don’t learn all that much about them in this book, but they all are missing one rib (surgically removed in early childhood), are even more tormented than Ayumu (and linked to him and/or his brother somehow), and possibly have some kind of secret over-arching plan. Two major Blade Children are introduced in this book: Eyes Rutherford, the goth-y English teenage piano sensation (the world within a manga is a deeply silly place, sometimes, full of people named “Eyes”), and the sneaky, monologuing Kousuke Asazuki. I’m not entirely sure if they’re supposed to be villains, per se, which might explain why they’re not terribly frightening – or comprehensible. All in all, I could follow the main plot of Spiral, but the first volume might have explained the point of it all in a way that I really needed. (more…)
Because it’s Christmas, by Michael Davis
Last week I told a bittersweet Christmas story and this week I was going to give my Christmas list of stuff that I thought would make good gifts.
Then…
I remembered the young lady I met in an airport a while back. I never got her name but she told me she wants to be a comic book artist and has no friends. She is a bit overweight and is being picked on at school because of that. She has a less than supportive family. Trust me, when I say “less than supportive” I’m being KIND.
I wrote about her in my column and related a story from my childhood that I hoped she would read.
I know what it’s like to that kid. I may not have been overweight but there were years when I felt I had no real friends. It’s the roughest around the holidays at least I had the support of my family…well most of my family.
So once again, my friend, this is for you. It’s a bit rough but trust me, it turns out OK.
My stepfather was an alcoholic and because of that I did not take my first drink until five years ago. I was under the impression that he was my real father and I did not want to go down the same road as him.
Get this: the way I found out that he was not my real father is an aunt of mine got mad at him and told me.
