Devil’s Arcade, by Martha Thomases

News
October 27, 2007

In honor of Halloween, here are some things that have scared me during my lifetime.

Dell Comics. When I was ten years old, my friend Kenny Raffle had a big pile of comics he let me read. In the stack was a Dell horror comic about a giant hand that would come out from under the street through manhole covers, grab people, and devour them through holes in its palm. It was stupid but terrifying. Several years later we had squirrels in the walls of our house, and when they ran around in the middle of the night, it sounded like fingernails on the wall. I’ve since learned that Dell didn’t submit their material to the Comics Code, arguing they were inherently wholesome. I mention this not to defend the Code, but to demonstrate that what seems wholesome to one person can terrify another. Stephen King was afraid of the “twi-night double-header.”

High School. I know now that it’s almost impossible to be an interesting adult if you had a good time in high school, but it still haunts me. I dream about finding myself still there, despite my insistence that I’m an adult, I graduated college, and I can’t live in an all-girls dorm anymore. Also, I can no longer fit in my uniforms.

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Happy 34th Birthday, Seth MacFarlane!

News
October 26, 2007

Today we celebrate the birthday of a man who has given us so much cause for hilarity, Seth MacFarlane, the man-child responsible for the shocking and hilarious television series, Family Guy. In addition to being the show’s chief creator and writer, his malleable timbre is behind many of the show’s characters, including Peter Griffin, Brian, Baby Stewie, Tom Tucker the Anchorman, Glenn Quagmire and a host of supporting characters. Although Family Guy was cancelled in 2000 and then again in 2002, it is the first show to be resurrected based on DVD sales. And let’s not forget to acknowledge the thousands of us who watched reruns on "Adult Swim." All those nights of bong hits and brownie binges were well worth the effort.

Thank you, teenagers and stoners nationwide, for your commitment to topical and nerd-material-citation humor. No one can deliver a Star Trek reference like MacFarlane can. Or for that matter, a Commencement Day speech at Harvard:

Dagwood Sandwich Shoppes

News
October 26, 2007

In the "gosh, nobody tells me anything" category: Dagwood’s is a franchise development and expansion company structured to become one of the fastest growing chains in history, built on the power of a brand that is famous across the world, and is synonymous with all things sandwich. Most of them are down south, so if anybody has actually been to one of these, let us know how they are.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Del Rey Manga Round-Up, Part Two

Uncategorized
October 26, 2007

Welcome to the second week of Manga Round-Up! This time, we have four more books from [[[Del Rey Manga]]] – all first volumes in series, as new-reader-friendly as it’s possible to be – which are aimed at a slightly older audience (sixteen and up) than the books I looked at last week.

And you know what “older audience means,” don’t you? That’s right – gore! (Did you think I was going to say “sex?” That’s the 18+ manga, which none of the publishers have sent me yet.)

Leading off the parade of blood-spattered stories is Hitohi Iwaaki’s Parasyte, in which alien spores drift down to Earth and creep into people’s ears to eat their brains. The parasites, who have no name for themselves – no culture or language of any kind, actually – then eat other humans, in very violent ways. It’s hinted that this is possibly a reaction by someone or something to save the Earth from us horrible humans. (But only hinted, at the beginning, and not brought up again.)

Our viewpoint character is a teenage boy named Shin, saved from having his brain eaten because he had his earbuds in while he was sleeping. (Possible life lesson #1: never, ever stop listening to music. Possible life lesson #2: don’t sleep on the floor, as the Japanese do.) Unfortunately, the parasite still got into his body – it just took over his hand instead. Shin names the parasite Migi (since it is his right hand, and that’s the Japanese word for “right”), and tries to live with it. But the parasites are utterly amoral and protective of their secrecy, so the mere fact that Shin knows they exist means that other parasites (the ones that ate brains, and so control whole bodies) want to kill him as soon as they learn about him. And getting along with an amoral, alien right hand that can transform instantly into whirring engines of death is not easy.

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How to network at conventions

News
October 26, 2007

We’re in a lull between major comic conventions, and so we’d like to take this time to point you to Diana Rowland’s tips for convention networking. Although written for science fiction conventions, the advice applies quite well to comic cons. Examples:

• Don’t bug the crap out of the pro or semi-pro who has been kind enough to take you under his/her wing for the con to introduce you to agents/editors at the con. Really now, these agents/editors probably meet several hundred shiny-eyed newbies at every con they go to, and dutifully and kindly pass along their business cards, and as soon as they’ve extracted themselves from the encounter will likely forget your name. Yes, even if you’ve pressed your business card into their hand.

• Again, if you’ve been fortunate enough to have a pro/semi-pro take you in hand, don’t stick with that person for the entire con. Dare to break away, especially if you find yourself waiting for them outside the bathroom. Trust me, they don’t really need to pee that much. They just need a break from you. Take the hint. Go to some panels. Go to the dealers room. Go wander around the con suite.

Because I Said So, by Michael Davis

News
October 26, 2007

My mother is almost 60 years old. She has been smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for almost 40 years. I don’t smoke. In fact I think it’s a stupid habit and I’m glad she told me not to do it.

She told me not to smoke. I listened. I’ll get back to that in a sec.

As I write this there is a raging debate over who can adopt and raise DOGS in this country. The talk show host Ellen DeGeneres gave a dog away she adopted. The agency said (and it was in the contract Ellen signed) you couldn’t give away an adopted dog so they went and took the dog away from the little girl Ellen had given the dog to. So Ellen goes on her talk show crying like a girl and tells the world of the injustice that has been done to this little girl. So what happened? Well the dog agency owners start to get death threats and Ellen’s legal team threatens “legal action” against the dog adoption agency.

What do I think? I could care less about Ellen, the dog agency, or the dog.

I am a wee bit concerned about this: why there is so much of an uproar about who raises a dog and virtually none about who raises kids? (more…)

Warehouse 13, meet Warehouse 23

News
October 25, 2007

(UPDATE 10/26 2:55: See below.) There’s a new show from Universal slotted for the Sci Fi Channel written by Rockne S. O’Bannon (Farscape, Alien Nation, Seaquest) and Jane Epsenson (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica). The press release from SciFi.com – Warehouse 13 Green Lighted:

SCI FI Channel has given a green light to Warehouse 13, a two-hour pilot it describes as part The X-Files, part Raiders of the Lost Ark and part Moonlighting. The pilot for a one-hour drama comedy comes from Universal Media Studios and is slated to begin production in December, with an eye toward a summer 2008 premiere.

After saving the life of the president, two FBI agents find themselves abruptly "promoted" and relocated to windswept South Dakota, to a top-secret location called Warehouse 13: a massive, secret storage facility that houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government over the centuries. The duo search the country for several missing objects while monitoring for reports of supernatural and paranormal activity that could indicate the presence of other objects they must retrieve.

Now compare that with this description from Steve Jackson Games for their GURPS RPG supplement Warehouse 23, a book originally published in 1999 that gave SJ Games the name of their online shop, with a very popular basement: (more…)

ComicMix Talks NASCAR!

News
October 25, 2007

They are passionate about the industry, they meet in large numbers several times a year and they even have a ton of cool collectibles. There are a lot of similarities between NASCAR fans and comic fans and now two members of the ComicMix Family are helping to bridge the gap even more.

Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley from EZ Street also have a wacky, daily strip here dedicated to NASCAR fanatics. ComicMix Radio lets the guys tell the story in their own words plus we even give you a preview of their own theme song!

Plus we’ve got updates on:

• Another Image comic headed to Hollywood

• The possible return of The Lone Ranger to the movies

• A delay in the Sinestro Corps Saga

Kemo Sabe say Press The Button!

Mark Millar not doing Superman movie

News
October 25, 2007

When Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris (screenwriters for X-2: X-Men United and Superman Returns) stated that they would NOT be writing the new live-action Superman sequel, Warner Bros. Pictures announced they would be looking at new pitches. Mark Millar (Ultimates, Civil War) was immediately vocal in his desire to take on the task. “I want to revamp Superman like Hillary wants thin ankles. Revamping this franchise is what I as given fingers for and so, invited or not, I’m putting my plan together now. I’ve been asked to work on half a dozen screenplays lately, but this is the only one I have ever truly wanted. As most here know, I have literally hundreds of pages of notes and sketches just waiting for this opportunity. This would be my dream gig and, as a fan, I know exactly what this project needs to work. This has to be Superman for the 21st Century, keeping everything we adore, but starting from scratch and making the kids love it as much as the 30-somethings. I would honestly write this thing for free.”

Sadly for Millar, it looks like it’s not going to happen. A couple of days later, he made the following statement: “I spoke to some friends at DC and they explained this has happened with a couple of big Marvel writers in the last couple of years and I absolutely respect that. It’s a business after all and to have a guy writing ‘Fantastic Four’ … which would be mentioned in every article about a Superman movie is not only an insult to their own writers, but makes bad business sense. I have nothing but respect for the DC high-ups and, though obviously disappointed, can absolutely appreciate their position. They’re the custodians of these properties and they obviously know what they’re doing.”

Who will write the new film and whether or not he’ll be an established comic book writer remains to be seen.

Happy birthday, Pablo Picasso!

News
October 25, 2007

Today we celebrate the birthday of one of art’s most important pioneers, Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso, born on this day in 1881. And you thought you had trouble being understood.

And speaking of Picasso and misunderstandings, we would be remiss if we didn’t remind you about Gordon Lee, the Georgia retailer who was arrested for distributing an excerpt of Nick Bertozzi’s now published graphic novel The Salon, depicting the first meeting between Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. On three pages of the eight page section, Picasso was drawn in the nude, a factually accurate detail for the period during which the story is set. The case has wound its way through Georgia courts for the last three years, at a cost of over $80,000 to Lee and his defenders, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. So we remind you to please donate today.

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