The ads have been all over comics the last few months, and you may have even thought about going to the website. So what is the deal behind the Suicide Girls and how do they fit into comics and pop culture?  The Big ComicMix Broadcast sits down with one of the most popular of the clan and get some answers …  Plus:

• DC makes a major claim on your wallet in 2008 (not to mention space on your book shelf)

• Welcome creator Robert Kirkman to the web!

• A new place to grab cool game trailers

• A nice slice of holiday web trivia

Here’s where you get to Press The Button!

The Golden Compass is the new film from New Line, directed by Chris Weitz, and starring Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott and the voices of Ian McKellan and Ian McShane, among others.  It’s about a young girl, Lyra, who lives in a world where everyone’s soul is outside her body, represented by an animal who can not only talk, but also argue.  The soul, called a daemon, is able to change shape until its human reaches maturity, when it “settles” into one form.

There has been a great deal of controversy about this film, based on the book by Philip Pullman, because some people think the bad guys (members of an organization called The Magisterium) is The Church. The Magisterium is conducting experiments, trying to remove daemons from children “for their own good,” and so “they will obey the rules.”  There’s also a lot of talk about a substance called Dust, but that doesn’t play an important part in the story until the later two chapters of the trilogy.

Martha Thomases:  What did you think of the movie?  What would you tell people who don’t know anything about it?

Lillian Baker:  I think it’s pretty good as long as you’re someone who likes surprises.  There were a lot of sudden movements.

MT:  Would you call it a scary movie? (more…)

Mark Crilley has been influenced by Japan before: his best-known work, the long all-ages Akiko series, is about a Japanese girl who has various adventures on alien worlds, and various elements of Japanese culture found their way into that book. But Akiko was still clearly a Western comic by a Western creator.

Miki Falls, on the other hand, is a deliberate attempt at what’s called an “OEL Manga” – something that follows many of the conventions of Japanese comics but was written as an Original English Language work. Crilley doesn’t draw his book backwards – wisely, I think, since if it can be difficult for a reader to switch orientation, I can only imagine how difficult it would be for a creator to do so – but it’s otherwise a very manga-influenced work. And so I’m looking at it this week as our “Manga Friday” feature.

Miki is just starting her senior year of high school in a fairly rural area of Japan. She’s determined to be really herself during this new year – not to go along with other people because it’s easier. (This seems to be a common desire for manga protagonists, possibly – he said, putting on his armchair group psychologist hat – because Japan is such a homogenous, conformist society.) But, since this is a manga story – and, to be less culturally specific, because it is a story about a teenage girl, and mostly written for other teenage girls – she meets a boy. A new boy in school. A mysterious, attractive, fascinating, keeps-to-himself boy. A boy named Hiro Sakurai.

Miki tells herself that she’s not falling in love with Hiro, but of course she is. And of course he’s utterly aloof, ignoring her – and everyone else in the school – at all times. Spring is the story of their meeting, and Miki’s budding love-hate relationship with Hiro (love him because he’s a dreamy boy, hate him because he won’t even look at her). At the end, we learn the secret, very manga-esque, reason why Hiro must hold himself aloof from all love…nay! from any normal human emotion! (Oops. I’m channeling Stan Lee there. That’s not a specific hint, but Miki and Hiro’s relationship does have aspects very familiar to Western comics readers, with a large helping of angst.)

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