The Mix : What are people talking about today?

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.

Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography review

  • News
  • October 25, 2007

Charles Schulz‘s life is already turning into a legend, in large part because he did the one thing a man can rarely control: he died perfectly, at the precise right time and place. Late in the night before his final Peanuts strip would appear in newspapers, on February 12, 2000, Schulz slipped into immortality.
 
On the other hand, he was close to immortal already; Peanuts was one of the biggest comic strips in this history of the medium, one of the largest licensing empires in the world, and one of the most beloved set of characters in the USA. And, since Schulz famously wrote every word and drew every line of the 17,897 strips from 1950 through 2000, it was purely his own achievement. Snoopy sheets would never have been big business if kids hadn’t already loved Snoopy, and they never would have loved Snoopy without Schulz. It’s difficult to overestimate what Schulz meant to cartooning over the past fifty years: he reshaped the newspaper strip in his image, brought a new tone and style to public discourse, and was hugely influential far beyond the bounds of the newspaper page.
 
And now, seven years after Schulz died, comes the first full-scale biography of the man who changed the face of newspaper comics forever. (more…)

Whose Story Is It, Anyway? by John Ostrander

  • News
  • October 25, 2007

In any given story, one of the primary questions that must be answered by the writer is – whose story is it? For example – in any Batman/Joker story, we assume that the story is going to be about Batman. He is the title character, after all. However, the story can be about the Joker – taken from his perspective, with the Joker as the protagonist and the Batman as his antagonist. A protagonist, after all, is not always a hero.

Sometimes, when I’m having problems with a story, I’ll go back to that simple, basic question – whose story is it? The answer sometimes surprises me. When I was writing my historical western for DC, The Kents, I assumed for a long time that the story was about Nate Kent, who was the direct ancestor of Pa Kent, Clark’s adoptive father. It was only when I was deep into the story that it occurred to me that the story was actually about Nate’s younger brother Jeb, who takes a wrong road, shoots his brother in the back at one point, becomes an outlaw, and eventually has to make things right.

The story may not always be about a person. When I wrote Gotham Nights, the focus of the story was the city itself, and the city was comprised not only of its buildings and roadways but, more importantly, the people who lived there, of whom I tried to give a cross-sampling. Batman was a part of all that because he is a part of Gotham City but the miniseries didn’t focus on him. It was Gotham City’s story. (more…)

House of Clay: Review

  • News
  • October 24, 2007

Naomi Nowak is a cartoonist resident in Sweden, of Hungarian-Polish ancestry, and presumably works in English, since this book doesn’t credit a translator. She is thus more cosmopolitan than most of us ever dream of being. This is her second graphic novel, after Unholy Kinship (which I haven’t seen).

My first impression is that Nowak must be influenced by P. Craig Russell and by manga – there are a lot of flowing layouts following ideas rather than action, and the delicacy of the figures and the flamboyance of some of the drawing is very reminiscent of Russell. But, given that she’s European, those may or may not be trustworthy comparisons. I can’t be sure what Nowak’s real influences are, but — looking at House of Clay — I do see what looks like a lot of manga and Russell in its DNA.

House of Clay has an atmosphere of unreality about it; Nowak’s style keeps the story from ever feeling completely real — it’s more like a fever dream or a retold legend. This is the story of one young woman, but it’s also a more primal story, an archetype, of all young women everywhere. (more…)

More Artistic Vocabulary, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • October 24, 2007

elayne100-5274740Well, I said I’d be back and, since there were a number of terms I didn’t recall until after last week’s column went live, I figured I’d take note of them this week while I still remember what more I wanted to say.

For instance, I can’t believe I neglected to talk about surface form versus underlying construction. I consider it one of the most important criteria for judging good comic book art. The more I learn about how visual storytelling is done, the pickier I find myself becoming when it comes to appreciating crafting level. Art doesn’t need to look polished to be of professional level (although my particular taste does lean more towards smooth and streamlined rather than blocky and rough). It just needs to show that the artist understands the rules about how things are logically built. It’s like any other creative endeavor — if you’re going to break the rules, you first need to prove you know what they are and are able to follow them.

I have to admit, not being an artist, that I’m not so sure about construction rules myself, certainly not enough to be able to articulate them for you the way my husband does for me. But I do know that one of the biggest mistakes many comic book readers make is confusing style with substance. When they judge a comic they’re usually looking at the final polish given to the work rather than judging what lies beneath that polish. And that’s understandable; if you don’t know how a piece of furniture is supposed to function in its environment, or even whether it’ll hold what it’s supposed to hold, you’re pretty much going to base your opinion of that furniture by how pretty it looks in the catalog or showroom.

(more…)

Happy 65th birthday, Michael Crichton!

  • News
  • October 23, 2007

47 years ago, my dad played center on his high school basketball in Patchogue, NY. He told me that one of the tallest guys he ever played against was the center for the Roslyn high school team, standing about 6’9". That center would go on to write novels under the pen names John Lange and Jeffery Hudson, so as to disguise his medical career. Lange, incidentally, means "tall one" in German, Danish and Dutch, and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a dwarf in the court of Queen Consort Henrietta Maria of England.

Eventually, he started using his own name, writing such works as The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Jurassic Park, and Sphere, and writing and sometimes directing such films as Westworld, Looker, Runaway, and Twister, and creating the long running television series ER.

We could not let this day go by without a big tip-o-th’geek hat to you, so happy birthday, Michael Crichton! (But Charlie Pellegrino still thought of how to find dinosaur DNA first.)

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