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Women of Color at MoCCA

  • News
  • November 13, 2007

As mentioned previously on ComicMix, last night’s "MoCCA Monday" panel was held in conjunction with Friends of Lulu and the Ormes Society, and featured three enterprising women of color working in the comics field.  Moderator (and Ormes Society founder) Cheryl Lynn Eaton interviewed Rashida Lewis, Jennifer Gonzalez and Alitha Martinez about their various projects, experiences in comics as both fans and creators, and hopes and expectations for the future.

The event was so well-attended that MoCCA volunteers were putting out extra rows of chairs to accommodate the crowd.  This seemed to speak to comics fans’ need to see and support images represented in their favorite hobby, both on the page and behind the drawing board, that aren’t always the white male default.  Even so, the very talented women seemed to want to keep an arm’s distance from the mainstream comics scene.  Lewis has a nice portfolio of work for Marvel Comics but felt constrained by corporate dictates, and is following her muse by painting and working on her upcoming manga title Yume and Ever.  Gonzalez takes her inspiration from Mad Magazine, underground and even horror comics to continue in the alternative world with Too Negative and her other dark humor works.  And Lewis has expanded her Sand Storm series into a downloadable game soon to be available for mobile devices, and is intrigued by the world of animation in general. (more…)

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Mighty Marvel MONEY Society

  • News
  • November 13, 2007

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They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s a shame they didn’t get it right.

Several months after ComicMix started posting serialized new comics for free, several weeks after ComicMix started posting complete previously-published comics for free, and, what, about a year after Newsarama started posting Powers and Kabuki and other titles for free, our friends at Marvel Comics have started reprinting their classic fare online – for ten bucks a month.

"We did not want to get caught flat-footed with kids these days who have the tech that allows them to read comics in a digital format," Marvel president Dan Buckley told USA Today. "Our fan base is already on the Internet. It seemed like a natural way to go."

Well, Dan, welcome to the club. We’ve been saving you a seat for a while now. By the way, since you’re charging so much money for all this, how much cash do the writers and artists get?

Power!, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • November 13, 2007

So you wanna be a superhero. Okay, where are your powers going to come from?

For years – nay, hundreds of years; nay, thousands of years – the brief answer was: From out there. Somewhere. The first superbeings in popular culture (the only kind there was, back then) were either gods, or pals of gods, or imbued with magical abilities, the origins of which weren’t necessarily clear or important. What was important was…wow! – look at what he/she/it can do! And so much the better if it, whatever spectacular thing it is, is being done for reasons I approve of.

That’s still what’s important. But our minds seem to be wired to want reasons for what we see, which is certainly why there’s science and may be why there’s art and civilization. But, oddly, once a reason is supplied, many of seem to be satisfied and require nothing further. The great cosmic snortlefish created the oceans? Swell, now I know why there’s all that water and what’s for dinner?

By the time Jerry Siegel got around to thinking up Superman in the summer of 1934, magic wasn’t terribly fashionable and it had long since become divorced from religion. But science…ah, science was going to deliver us and besides, it was real. And Jerry was a reader of science fiction, which, in those happy days, at least claimed to be rooted in physics and chemistry and astronomy and stuff like that. So it was natural, maybe inevitable, that he would give his übermensch a science rationale. Guy comes from another planet, sure – that’d be why he could be so powerful. Makes sense. Made sense to Jerry in 1934, probably would have made sense to me when I was the age Jerry was when he created Superman, if I’d thought about it.

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We’re Going To Get Our Flying Car

  • News
  • November 12, 2007

Baby boomers have been whining about this since the turn of the century. Well, we’re about to get our wish. Sort of.

According to Sharon Gaudin at IDG, we’re about to get our flying car. Terrafugia Inc. is currently creating a prototype of The Transition, a 19-foot, two-seat "roadable light-sport aircraft" that is both road-worthy and air-worthy.

I know you’ve got to start somewhere, but the prototype kind of misses the point. "We’re not going to have a flying car, as people think of it, for a while," chief operating officer Anna Dietrich told IDG. We don’t have the infrastructure to deploy roadable planes. We need runaways instead of roads, and the FAA is likely to demand drivers have a pilot’s license. Typical government buzz-kill crap. Actually, since you’ll need a pilot’s license and you’re restricted to airport take-offs and landings, there’s no real benefit to The Transition over traditional small airplanes which seat twice as many people, except you won’t need to take a cab to the airport.

The flying car will be available in 2009; they’ve already taken orders for about 40 of them. This means there will likely be more Transitions in the air than there ever were Tuckers on the road. The machine will sport an anticipated price of $148,000; chrome detailing will be extra.

(Thanks and a tip of the hat to Rick Oliver.)

A Whale of an Anniversary

  • News
  • November 12, 2007

Today marks the anniversary of the first governmentally exploded whale. Yes, you read right: whale explosion.

37 years ago today, in an effort to dispose of a rotting carcass, the Oregon Highway Division set out to blow up a dead sperm whale with a half ton of dynamite.  The resulting explosion sent blubber flying and totaled a car a quarter of a mile away. The incident was made famous in 1990 when columnist Dave Barry wrote about it with graphic hilarity, and the news footage of the disposal has since gone on to become the fifth most watched video on the Internet, according to the BBC.

And if you’re wondering why "governmentally" exploded was the necessary modifier, it’s because whales have been known to spontaneously blow up by themselves. Recently in Taiwan a dead sperm whale beat its transporters to the punch during a postmortem move when the gas inside its decomposing body built up enough for it to, well, you know what. If you thought your job sucked, just think of the janitor who was responsible for that clean up. Oddly enough, whales are not the only self-explosive animals; maybe just the funniest.

To no one’s surprise, there’s a web site devoted to this at theexplodingwhale.com. What is surprising is that there’s currently a one man show running in Chicago about it. Countdown: The Story of the Exploding Whale runs Wednesday nights at 8pm from October 10th through November 28th at the Apollo Theater, 2540 N Lincoln Avenue. Bring the kiddies.

Coming Soon To A TV Near You, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • November 12, 2007

The television and movie writers strike is entering its second week. The picket lines are being staffed by more stars than there are in the heavens. The writers are looking for their fare share of DVD revenue – currently, approximately three to four cents per sale – and of commercial Internet action – currently, zilch.

Ironically, as teevee shows are starting to go on early hiatus, us folks back home are beginning to turn to DVD purchase and rentals to fill the downtime, lest our sets stare blankly back at us.

This one seems simple. If somebody is making money off of your work, you deserve a fair share of the action. Or even a taste. Anyway, something more than an insult. Collective bargaining is genuinely American; it mirrors the very values of fair play that we were all taught in school. Just like “socialized medicine,” there is nothing left wing or communistic about it – despite what some of our right wing politicians, corporate magnates and the liars at Fox News babble incessantly babble.

We need to look no further than the deposed leader of Disney, Michael Eisner. “It’s a waste of their time. “(The studios) have nothing to give. They don’t know what to give.” Oh, really? These clueless number crunchers who “earn” eight digit compensation packages strictly solely off of the sweat of the artistic community (writers, directors, musicians, performers – 90% of whom are largely or completely unemployed at any moment in time, et al) have nothing to give? How about starting with me, and give me a break. (more…)

Legos, Peter David vs Howard Stern and Free Links

  • News
  • November 11, 2007

brickj-6931344In case the change in weather hasn’t hit your area yet, let us remind you that pages of the calendar are flying by as fast as in a one of those old Hollywood movies and those holiday are rushing closer. That being said, keep in mind a lot of our links do make way cool gifts!

• After existing since 2005 as a digital edition averaging over 100,000 downloads per issue, TwoMorrows will be taking BrickJournal into the print world. The print edition will debut in February 2008 with a new #1, and will be offered in the December issue of Diamond Distribution’s Previews and will be carried at newsstands and bookstores nationwide, as well as on the publisher’s website. Meanwhile, the latest issue (#9, the last digital-only edition) is available now as a free download here for anyone to sample.

• Just in time to drop under your tree, Museum Replicas Limited has their limited edition prop quality Magneto Helmet . Created from the actual 20th Century Fox prop, used in the motion picture X-Men 3 – The Last Stand, based on Marvel’s ever popular Superhero franchise, the helmet is full steel construction, has a leather padded lining and a polished enamel finish.  If the quality doesn’t have collectors everywhere clamoring for one, the attractive display stand, certificate of authenticity or the 2,006 piece limited edition run, will. If you just want to drool over the thing, go here.

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Striking the right notes

  • News
  • November 11, 2007

As the WGA strike begins its second week, ComicMix staffers and columnists applaud our fellow writers, remind readers to keep turning to United Hollywood and Deadline Hollywood Daily for the latest news, and promise to keep entertaining you as best we can!  Here’s what we’ve had for you this past week:

May the WGA get everything it wants and well deserves!

Close Encounters of the Third Help!, by Ric Meyers

  • Uncategorized
  • November 11, 2007

help-5987774But first a digression. I went to see American Gangster the other day (engrossing, well done, I’d give it a solid 8 outta 10), which included previews for the upcoming movies Wanted (Mr. & Mrs. Smith meets The Matrix) and Jumper (X-Men ripoff), both of which were absolutely chock full of cgi making the characters do all sorts of incredible, impossible things amid carnage which would turn normal men’s biology into strawberry jam.

   

As I watched dispassionately the following motto came to mind that I wish were put on billboards and t-shirts and those inspirational posters that they sell in airline mail order catalogs, to be seen in every studio, producers’ and executives’ office:

   

“When nothing is impossible, nothing is interesting.”

   

Just wanted to get that down on record. Now we return to this week’s DVD Xtra column, already in progress.

   

I’m a happy camper. Creeping into stores on cat feet or ninja paws this week is a movie I’ve been waiting to appear on DVD for years. It was one of my absolute favorites as a kid (in fact, through only slightly some fault of my own, it wound up being the movie I’ve seen the most through the years), and, while its predecessor (A Hard Day’s Night) got a swell special edition two-disc set via Miramax in 2002, this one has languished in limbo until now — and, to top it off, needed the Beatles’ record company to make it a DVD reality.

   

It is, of course, Help!, the music-filled, Goon Showish/Monty Python-esque film farce MTV has officially credited as being its inspiration. Now, thanks to the Beatles’ Apple company (not to be confused with the like-named company on whose computer I presently type these words) and Capitol Records, Help! has now got a lovely two-disc special edition of its own.

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Li’l Abner Lost in Hollywood, by Michael H. Price

  • Uncategorized
  • November 11, 2007

lil-abner-3002256Sustained flashback to 1940, and to an early stage of confidence and high promise for Al Capp’s long-running comic strip, Li’l Abner. Conventional wisdom, bolstered by accounts from Capp his ownself, holds that the name Yokum is a combination of “yokel” and “hokum.” That would be Yokum, as in Abner Yokum and his rural Southern lineage.

Such an explanation also might seem to demean the resourceful gumption that Li’l Abner Yokum and his family represent. Capp established a deeper meaning for the name during a series of visits around 1965-1970 with comics historian George E. Turner and Yrs. Trly.

“There are many real-life Yokums around the South,” explained Capp. “Some spell the name like Abner’s, with variations including Yoakam and Yokom, and so forth. It’s phonetic Hebrew – that’s what it is, all right – and that’s what I was getting at with the name Yokum, more so than any attempt to sound hickish. That was a fortunate coincidence, of course, that the name should pack a backwoods connotation.

“But it’s a godly conceit, really, playing off a godly name – Joachim means “God’s determination,” something like that – that also happens to have a rustic ring to it,” Capp added. “When I came up with that ‘yokel-plus-hokum’ bit in some early interviews, I was steering clear of any such damned-fool intellectualism. It helps to keep things looking simple for the massed readership, when you’re trying to be subversive with a cartoon.” (One such “yokel/hokum” reference appears in an article on Capp’s success with Li’l Abner in the November 1942 issue of Coronet magazine.)

A.D. 1940 is a significant point, here, in that the year marked Abner’s first leap from the funnypapers onto the moving-picture screen.

(more…)

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