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I for one welcome our new robot overlords

  • News
  • December 4, 2007

Comics and TV scribe John Rogers and Tyrone are having lunch again.

John: … No.

Tyrone: Listen, all I’m asking is that you give the idea a decent —

John: Robot overlords. You are "pro-robot overlords".

Tyrone: They bring world peace, universal health care —

John: At the cost of our freedoms!

Tyrone: MY POINT EXACTLY. We’re already giving up our freedoms — our right to privacy, gone. Warrantless arrest, gone. Right to have your vote counted is super-gone depending on the state you live in, right to stand trial, gone — we have torture. We already have all the downsides of a supposed robotic takeover, but we’re being cheated of the upside! I say, if this is the world we’re gonna live in anyway, at least let the robot overlords have their shot. World peace, technological utopia — and no crime! The robot overlords’ crime control is swift and merciless.

John: But it’s completely … uncaring All people will be punished equally regardless of circumstance!

Tyrone: I’m sorry, did you forget I was black?

Read, as the kids say, the whole thing.

Note: this was submitted when this first came out but had originally been cut by UberEditor Gold because he didn’t quite see a timely link to anything, nothing newsy. To which I reply: It’s Christmas! Everything goes better with Christmas music! Look at this piece from Jonathon Coulton and see if you don’t agree.

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Special incentive for GrimJack fans!

  • News
  • December 4, 2007

gjweek10promo-9145780Yes, the latest installment of GrimJack: The Manx Cat is up today. But we’ll let you have a sneak peek at next week’s installment right now! Just vote for GrimJack on TopWebComics and you can see a page from next week. Just click here. And thanks!

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Nudity and the Editorial Process, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • December 4, 2007

3202470258-9273812In my dotage, I’m coming to believe that a little adolescent rebellion is usually a good thing, and if the rebellion creeps a year or two into full, card-carrying adulthood, that’s okay. Much after the fact, I learned of some things my kid did in his Greenwich Village youth: I’m not sorry he did them and I’m glad I didn’t know of them until much later.

(As for myself…let me note that the principal of my high school told my mother after graduation that they never, ever wanted to see me again. I must have done something…)

Father does not always know best and either does Mother. Like generals, they’re fighting old wars and kids are caught in new wars, which means the kids have to find their own way, which is a process of experimentation, which means that Junior and Pops can’t and shouldn’t march in lock step,

We will now retire the military metaphors and explain what any of this has to do with our current topic, the evolution of superheroes.

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Rob Liefeld’s 40 worst drawings? You missed a few…

  • Uncategorized
  • December 3, 2007

This list is making the rounds, The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings, highlighting his particular style of anatomy, perspective, teeth-gritting and shoulder pads. If you can get through to the site, it’s worth a view. However, the compilers missed an entire category of sins. Look below:

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The first image is from New Mutants #93, cover date September, 1990, reprinted here. I would normally say that it’s by Rob Liefeld except when you look at the second image, from Fantastic Four #247, by John Byrne back in October 1982, reprinted here— well, it’s not quite Rob’s art, is it now?

If you have other examples of other places where Rob Liefeld has been less than a scrupulous stickler for credit, list it in the comments below and we’ll find the art and post it.

ComicMix: the widget!

  • News
  • December 3, 2007

A number of people have come here from Peter David’s beloved weblog — specifically that neat bar on the right sidebar that he has that lists our headlines. And a number of folks have said, "Hey! I have a weblog! Can I get that fancy feed of yours on my weblog?"

Absolutely. Just grab it from here:

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You can go for partial articles or headlines only, and can even tweak the size and color of it to fit in with your own design. Enjoy — and thanks for putting us on your site!

Note: for those of you who just want a simple RSS feed, you can still get that at http://comicmix.com//rss/.

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Demons of Sherwood debuts today

  • Uncategorized
  • December 3, 2007

demonsofsherwoodcover-8572106Today, ComicMix takes you back to Sherwood Forest in Demons of Sherwood.  It’s twelve years after the end of the Robin Hood story you know, when Robin restores Richard to the throne and regains his castle. 

Happily ever after? Not really…

Robin is a drunk.  He hasn’t seen Marian since the end of their adventures with his merry men.  He hasn’t seen much of them, either.  And now comes word that Marian is in trouble, jailed as a witch by the Inquisitor from Rome…

Written by Robert Tinnell (co writer of EZ Street, and writer and director of the upcoming film Feast of the Seven Fishes, based on his comic), Demons is co-written and painted by the legendary Bo Hampton. Bo knows comics.  He has worked in comics and related media since 1978 as an artist and occasionally as a writer. He painted Viking Glory for DCComics and Legend of Sleepy Hollow for Image.  Last year he co-plotted with writer Tinnell and drew Sight Unseen, a graphic novel for Image. Bo, his wife Teresa, their daughters Caitlin and Callie, and their dog Tickets, currently reside in Atlanta, Georgia. He describes himself as a Southerner who never thought he had an accent until moving to New York to attend Art School whereupon he discovered that he was, after all, a hillbilly. But the kind of hillbilly that says "whereupon".

What is Demons of Sherwood about?

Bob:  Demons of Sherwood picks up the story of Robin Hood around more than a decade after his "glory days."  The Merry Men have moved on with their lives and Robin is pretty much a falling down drunk.  Worse, he hasn’t seen or heard from Marian in the intervening years – until now.  There’s a new breed of tyrant in the neighborhood, a self-proclaimed "Witchhunter" – and he’s tried Marian, found her guilty and sentenced her to death by burning.  So Robin’s got to get his act together.  Unfortunately, for all parties there really are demonic forces at work in Sherwood Forest…

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Keith Olbermann reads the comics on Countdown

  • News
  • December 3, 2007

vvbilloreilly-2537568Last Friday, Keith Olbermann pulled a Fiorello LaGuardia and read a cartoon from this week’s Village Voice on his MSNBC show, Countdown. The cartoon, "Bill O’Reilly’s Very Useful Advice For Young People (As Channeled By Vile Left-Wing Smear Merchant Tom Tomorrow)" can be seen here, and the reading– well, just watch:

Remember kiddies, that’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, and if you watch it, you’ll go to Hell too because you hate America. On the other hand, if you’re going through Daily Show and Colbert Report withdrawal as the writers strike drags on, give it a shot.

Speaking Ill Of The Dead, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • December 3, 2007

51zhqnwb11l-_ss500_-2489854As we were driving back east from two weeks in Detroit, Columbus, Chicago and Toledo – next time, I’m getting a campaign bus – we heard the news of Evel Knievel’s death. No, this blather isn’t about him, although I do think that saying you’re going to take your motorcycle and jump over 50 school buses loaded with nuns and orphans and then strapping rockets to the bike is cheating. Nope, this blather is about Irwin Allen, noted dead movie and television producer/director/writer and former cover story in Modern Asshole magazine.

Allen was best known for his disaster movies, “disaster” in the sense that the plots involved some sort of serious event (The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure). His connection to Knievel? When I was at DC Comics back in 1976, he called me in a fit of pique about his upcoming movie, Viva Knievel! It seems he heard we were doing a big ol’ comic book teaming Superman up with Muhammad Ali, and he thought a Batman vs. Evel Knievel companion volume was a lovely idea.

I didn’t, and as it turned out somebody quoted my arguments to him. Irwin was more than mildly annoyed. He called to try to talk me out of it, not that the decision to make or not make such a comic book was anywhere near my capabilities at the time. His technique was rather unique: instead of sweet-talking me or convincing me of the error of my ways, he used invective and attack. He wanted to know where some 26 year-old pissant got off sabotaging (honest) a big Hollywood macher like him. He started screaming an unending list of curse words that would have impressed George Carlin. He threatened my unborn children, promised to destroy my career (coming short of “you’ll never have lunch in this town again,” as I was in New York City) and I think there was something in there about my mother and an orangutan.

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Happy 65th anniversary, Manhattan Project!

  • News
  • December 2, 2007

Perhaps it is not geekdom to celebrate, but it is geekdom nonetheless and it is to be remarked upon for the path it has set the world on since.  Today in 1942, the Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, and his team initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction as part of the Manhattan Project.

Why is this important to comic books? Well, without this tremendous advance in science, we’d never have gamma bombs, radioactive spiders, Fallout Boy, post WWIII apocalyptic horrors, teenage mutants, teenage mutant ninjas, and obviously, no Dr. Manhattan.

So let’s break open some old watches for the radium and go glow in the dark while we see if anybody’s actually found nuclear weapons in Iraq or Iran.

Great Hot Comics Links For Free!

  • News
  • December 2, 2007

Here in the east, we are getting our first look at snow. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than tossing a few issues of 52 on the fire and clicking our way around the cool spots we found for you:

The play A Very Ninja Christmas, based on Jimmy Gownley’s  Amelia Rules! series, is running this week (December 6th, 7th, and 8th) in Marlborough, New Hampshire on  2007. Adapted from a Christmas themed story that appeared in the first Amelia volume, “Amelia Rules: The Whole World’s Crazy,” the musical relates how 9-year-old superhero-wannabe Reggie Grabinsky enlists his superhero crew to try to prove Santa is a fraud. It is produced by Small Pond Productions. Plans to make the musical available to other theater companies is in the works and you can get details here.

That new Warren Ellis community we told you about is here. It’s actually a site for the upcoming webcomic FreakAngels which is set to premiere in February, 2008.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has kicked off its 2007 Holiday Benefit Auction here on ebay. You’ll find featuring a ton of rare and one-of-a-kind items offered to support the First Amendment legal work; proceeds from this auction will directly benefit the ongoing defense of Gordon Lee in Rome, GA. Items include original art by Jeff Smith, Matt Wagner, Dave Sim, Dustin Nguyen, David Lloyd, Kevin Nowlan, Terry Moore, David Mack and  signed items by Laurell K. Hamilton, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, Will Eisner, Robert Kirkman, Jon J Muth, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee and others. Bidding is now open, with most items closing on Sunday, December 9.

A week or so ago, we told you about the Get Munked promotional effort for the feature film Alvin and The Chipmunks. In case you haven’t had a chance yet to annoy friends and family, go here and become the above-average chipmunk by recording a unique voice message. We are happy to say there are also free Chipmunk mobile voicetones, so start drinking now.

This week, ComicMix Radio plunges ahead with a big week for new comics and DVDs (Battlestar Galactica: Razor, anyone?), a behind-the-scenes on Bo Hampton and Robert Tinnell’s Demons Of Sherwood (coming to ComixMix – FREE, of course), another Hidden Gem from your local comic shop and a visit from the creator of America’s #1 family comic strip. That should hold you for another seven days!

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