The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Norman Mailer, Neil Gaiman Fanboy

  • News
  • November 10, 2007

1101730716_400-8720063Norman Mailer died this morning, age 84, at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. You can scour the news to read about his importance to literature in the Twentieth Century, from his ground-breaking novels to founding the Village Voice. But did you know he also helped change comics?

One night, we had a dinner party for the express purpose of introducing Mailer to Neil Gaiman. Neil, as was his habit, was so charming that Norman wanted to read Sandman. He liked the series enough to provide a cover blurb for the next trade paperback collection. Neil later reported that bookstore buyers told him that the Mailer quote persuaded them to stock graphic novels. And the rest, as they say, is history. Ancient Evenings is an awesome book. Start there.

timnjoe-2172608

Joe Strummer and Selling Out

  • News
  • November 10, 2007

timnjoe-2172608I was at the old Chicago Comicon back in 1989, walking the corridors of the old Ramada-O’Hare hotel with my old pal Timothy Truman when an intense fan grabbed Tim by the arm.

“How could you,” the fan said, and I paraphrase. “How could you sell out?” He sported a gaze of disappointment and hostility. Tim didn’t ask what he was talking about. He knew. He had started supplementing his income by working for “the majors” – at that time, DC Comics. Not that First Comics and Eclipse Comics were any less corporate with many of the evils associated therewith; DC and Marvel were just bigger and better at it.

“Hey, I wanted to do a tribute to Gar Fox,” Timothy replied, and I continue to paraphrase. “I liked doing it.”

The fan staggered off muttering about things like big business and working for the man and such. I’m about as Red Cat as they come in comics (with the probable exception of Mark Badger), but I understood one thing: if you want to work on a corporate-owned character, you’re going to have to work for the corporation, and (as Martha Thomases noted earlier today) by their rules. That’s how gravity works.

(more…)

TV Eye by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • November 10, 2007

A few thoughts on the Writers Guild of America strike, and what it means for comics – and you!

• If the history of comics has shown us anything, it’s the fact that the more satisfied the creative talent is with their deal, the better our choices in entertainment. The rise in independent comics that started with the undergrounds in the 1960s forced innovation on what had been a stodgy industry, not only in terms of subject matter but also in terms of revenue sharing and creator-owned properties.

• Television and movies are much more collaborative efforts than comics, so sharing copyrights and trademarks can be much more complicated. That’s why, in those media, the accepted standard payments are residuals and royalties. Even though the comics industry has been paying royalties for over a decade, I have not seen it make any difference in the bottom line at Warner Bros. or Marvel. When profits are shared, everyone profits. (Aside: Yes, I know studio accountants can magically make profits disappear. That’s a separate rant.)

• It’s kind of hilarious that people expect a flood of Hollywood talent to descend on comics during the strike. For one thing, most of the major publishers book up their talent on regular books for at least six months to a year. For another, the major publishers offer deals that are much worse than what the studios are offering. DC or Marvel may consider original graphic novels, but they’ll want to retain ownership, just as they do with all their other properties. (more…)

Women of Color in Comics and Manga

  • Uncategorized
  • November 9, 2007

Looks like Valerie D’Orazio is starting her new term as President of Friends of Lulu with a bang. Along with the Ormes Society (and the equally wonderful Cheryl Lynn Eaton), the group is sponsorting a panel, "Women of Color in Comics and Manga." On the panel: Alitha Martinez (Iron Man, Thor, Yume and Ever), Jenny Gonzalez (Too Negative), and Rashinda Lewis (Sand Storm), with Moderator Cheryl. It all starts at 7 PM on Monday, November 12, at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) (594 Broadway, Suite 401, SoHo, baby!).

Manga Friday: Out of the Past

  • News
  • November 9, 2007

This week, Manga Friday heads into the past…sort of. I picked up the first volume of two extremely popular manga series, to see what they’re all about. But we’ll start with something even less likely.

Siku is the pseudonym for a British cartoonist of Nigerian heritage who’s worked extensively in the British comics industry for the last ten years, including the obligatory stint on Judge Dredd. But he’s done something very different now – a book called The Manga Bible. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a retelling of the entire Christian Bible, in a manga-influenced art style, in two hundred pages. The script was written by Akin Akinsiku, another Nigerian-British comics creator, and there’s a lot of script.

Now, I’ve read Bible comics before. (You might not know this, but your humble Manga Friday correspondent won his church’s Bible Olympics two straight years back in his ill-spent youth.) There was a set of ten or so books that I particularly remember from that time, which adapted the entire bible, one chunk per book. And even those comics were pretty wordy – folks in the Bible tend to talk a lot (even with a New International Version translation, like the Manga Bible uses), and descriptive captions are often required to explain what’s going on and who all of these people are.

The Manga Bible is extremely wordy; each page is nearly covered in captions and dialogue balloons, to the detriment of the art. Yes, the characters are drawn in a manga-influenced style, but the storytelling doesn’t owe much to manga at all. It’s exceptionally compressed, like an early ‘60s Superman story, without the expansiveness and flowing layouts of real manga. The art is eye-catching, though not so stylized as to appear completely alien to American eyes. So it’s a shame that it’s so cramped, shoved into small panels by the relentless flow of words, words, words. (more…)

The death of the original Mary Jane

  • News
  • November 9, 2007

Boy, when this Mary Jane was threatened by a villian, he wasn’t kidding around.

Today in England, 1888, marked the death of Jack the Ripper’s last known victim, Mary Jane Kelly. Like most psychopaths, Jack started off killing his victims a certain way and once he got the taste for it just became more and more creatively sick (someone’s been watching too many crime shows). So while the other girls got a punch in the face and had their throats cut, poor Mary was even more brutally murdered. She was found gutted with her intestines pulled out and decorated around the room, and her heart on the bedside dresser.  Her face was unrecognizable. 

It is so compelling a story that it inspired the graphic novel From Hell by writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell, which was later adapted into a movie starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham and Ian Holm.

With Great Power… by Michael Davis

  • News
  • November 9, 2007

It’s no secret that I think that people who worship celebrity are idiots. I mean, come on; do these people really think that Britney is thinking about them? Every night on a popular entertainment news program they have something called “Britney watch.” That is just nuts to me. This show follows Britney Spears everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE! If she goes to Starbucks there are camera crews watching her sip from a cup. I’m not kidding.

Most of the people we hold up as stars are also looked up to by many as heroes. Really? With that in mind I wondered what would happen if our super heroes acted like today’s stars.

My apologies in advance to DC, Marvel, Archie and everyone else. Hey guys, satire is good for the soul!

High above the skies of Metropolis an epic battle rages. For hours Superman and the evil super villain have traded blow after terrific blow. Neither asking for quarter neither granting any. Finally Superman looks into the face of the evil super villain and shouts, “You can’t win evil, super villain!” The evil super villain produces a green rock from behind his back. He thrusts it out at Superman who withdraws in terror! “ Kryptonite!” Superman says the word as if its very mention is painful to him. The evil super villain flies closer to Superman who is struggling to remain airborne. “Now you will die!!” The evil super villain declares as Superman plummets from the sky! (more…)

Wrestling And Killing… Batman?

headlocked-8162281Like the medium or not, you do have to admit that there are a lot of similarities between pro wrestling and comics. In years past, there hasn’t been a successful bridge between the two, but creator Mike Kingston is taking a totally new approach with his Headlocked series. ComicMix Radio talks to Mike about his project and his love of both wrestling and comics, plus:

• Fox waves the white flag & shelves 24

• A new X-Men story line heats up with a sold out comic

• ABC is going with Lost … no matter what

• Oh yeah, and they are killing Batman again?

Press The Button, or you get a chair to the head, ya jabroni!

Crusading for irony

  • Uncategorized
  • November 8, 2007

A little bird told us there’s a new unintentionally-comedic Jack Chick comic book tract out, number 18 in the evangelical publisher’s Crusader series (mock them all!).

This one’s called The Enchanter, and purports to warn of the dangers of Mormonism, claiming that "After people read this illustrated book, they will not be vulnerable to the Mormon recruiters!"  It features panels like this one:

chick23-2025110

Now see, to me the problem here is that this preacher could be from just about any religion, particularly the brand espoused by Chick.  I mean, if you’re going to call your series Crusaders Comics, that pretty much conjures up images of fanatics attempting to establish religions using swords.  But I guess irony isn’t one of those lessons easily learned from Bible study.

life-8516590

Life, in Pictures — Review

  • News
  • November 8, 2007

life-8516590

OK, so you all know Will Eisner is a genius of comics – inventor of The Spirit, possibe coiner of the “graphic novel” term, namesake of awards, grandfather of every autobio cartoonist of the last three decades – right? But how many of you have actually read his stuff recently?

(Or is it just me – am I the only one who had spent more time reading about Eisner than actually reading his works?)

Eisner, at the end of his life (he died in early 2005), made a deal for much of his extensive backlist to be republished by the very classy – and previous not open to comics – publisher W.W. Norton. They published his last graphic novel, the not entirely successful The Plot, are in the process of reprinting many of his works, and, in particular, assembled three big omnibuses of Eisner’s best stories. The Contract With God Trilogy came out in early 2006, Will Eisner’s New York in late 2006, and now Life, in Pictures collects three of his most autobiographical graphic novels (and a couple of shorter stories).

Eisner was born in 1917, and turned back to comics after his retirement in the mid-‘70s, so it shouldn’t be surprising that there’s something old-fashioned about his stories. But yet these stories are so relentlessly old-fashioned, and so steeped in a New York that was obsolete before I was born, that it needs to be noted. (The story set the closest to modern times in Life, in Pictures is the earliest story, “A Sunset in Sunshine City,” set roughly contemporaneous to its 1985 publication. Other than that, the stories here reach up to WW II at best – and, then, only at the very end of a long story.

(more…)

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks