You can tell how popular any particular media event or personage is by how many ancillary products emerge. Something really popular will metastasize into toothbrushes, sports cars, sleepwear, foodstuffs, architecture, and so on – the specifics depend on what the original piece was, and who the audience is, but the number of those products is a good guide to the popularity of its original.
Akira Club
Obits – obituaries – are tough things to write. Their purpose is to commemorate the life of someone recently deceased, to list their accomplishments and achievements, to take note that someone has passed out of our lives. A last fanfare to the life of someone who is gone. Generally speaking, they are valedictory and complimentary.
Why do we wait until after a person has passed away to stand up and say these things? Okay, it might embarrass the person we’re talking about to hear the nice things we might say – and mean – about them but they’ll get over it. And they might like to hear them.
All of which is prelude to the fact that I am about to embarrass someone – a fellow member of ComicMix. Ladies and germs, let’s talk about Mr. Dennis O’Neil.
ComicMix readers tend to be a pretty knowledgeable lot, I’ve discovered. Unlike some comic book fans, they know their comic book history and know it extends prior to Marvel’s Civil War or DC’s Infinite Crisis. If you already know most of what I’m about to tell you, sorry – but I’m speaking for the record and for people who may not know Denny as well as they might or should.
On this day in 1979, a ravenous beast was released in Japan, devouring all that got in its way. No, not Godzilla: Pac-Man. It rapidly crossed the ocean to the US (a year later to the day, ironically) spawning multiple sequels, an animated Saturday morning show, and a top 40 single called "Pac-Man Fever" that I’m exceptionally embarassed to say that I owned.
Like all 80s culture, of course, it probably means that there’s going to be a big screen movie…
According to the Los Angeles Times, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia referenced Lex Luthor during a recent oral argument at the nation’s "highest" court.
While considering the case of Gall v. U.S., a judge sentenced a drug dealer to probation rather than the prison term. According to the Times: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested to the defendant’s lawyer that jail time might have been appropriate because, while his client had left the drug conspiracy, he hadn’t blown the whistle on his co-conspirators.
"The lawyer replied: “Justice Ginsburg, when someone leaves the conspiracy and blows the whistle, typically that individual is not charged…
"’I’m sure that’s not always true,’ Chief Justice John Roberts interjected. ‘I mean, if the leader of some vast conspiracy is the one who blows the whistle, I suspect he may well be charged anyway.’
“’Lex Luthor might,’ added Justice Antonin Scalia."
It is not known if Scalia, a noted right-wing advocate, referenced Luthor out of nostalgia or respect. It is known, however, that Scalia is indeed known for his sense of humor.
Tip o’ the hat to our pal Mike Catron for the lead.
Now that I’ve got your attention, No: J.J. Abrams is not doing a line of Hulk books. Rather, he’s just announced that former Hulk star Eric Bana will be facing off against the new Captain James T. Kirk in 2008’s remake/reboot/re-imagining/re-whatever of Star Trek. Bana is signed to play Nero, the newest/oldest baddie who has a plan to take down Kirk and probably the whole enterprise.
So far, Abrams has been pretty good on keeping a lid on casting rumors and things we, the fans, don’t really need to know just yet. Back at ComiCon, he announced that Heroes‘ star Zachary Quinto would be playing our new Spock.. along side Nimoy, who will ALSO be portraying the role. This brings up theories that it could be a parallel universe, or alternate timelines, or they could all be lost on an island that has mystical powers… let’s hope it’s not that last one.
Also set star is Anton Yelchin (Huff) as young Chekov, Zoe Saldana (Pirates Trilogy) as the young Uhura, and it is rumored that Mike Vogel (from the new giant monster/alien/who knows movie Cloverfield/1-18-08) will take the helm as our new, less bloated James T. Kirk.
The film is currently set for a Christmas 2008 release.
If you worry about the unwholesome imagery and unhealthy body types being portrayed in comics — corsetted Wonder Woman, bare belly Supergirl, fishnet clad Zatanna and Black Canary, leather wearing Storm, and so on — and are worried that it could provoke problems when people try to squeeze into outfits like that for Halloween this year, just know: it could be worse.
There’s this number to our right, which the seller labels as “Anna Rexia.” And yes, those are tape measures for a belt and choker.
Guess she won’t be having much candy… or she’ll be throwing it up right afterwards.
Last week was the American Library Association’s annual "Banned Books Week." What bothers me most about Banned Books Week isn’t its concept, but its name. Even its proponents admit it’s not about banned books, but challenged ones. Even at our country’s most fascist periods (like, um, now), I don’t believe our federal, state or local governments have actually banned books in decades, if ever. But apparently "banned" has a more alliterative cachet than "challenged" or "endangered" or even scrapping the misnomer altogether in favor of something like "Freedom to Read Week" which is more in keeping with the point of the event — to "celebrate the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stress the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them."
Oh sure, lots of backwards-thinking people, the kind who usually believe every word in the Bible is true (rather than seeing the book as allegorical fiction and an interesting take on history by multiple authors, the way a lot of rationalists view it), seek to limit others’ imaginations and freedoms and generally stir up trouble by whining in the courts about any piece of fact or fiction they don’t like, from science texts to Harry Potter. And these attempts at censorship should be and are condemned and fought by patriots and book-lovers everywhere they crop up. Partly because of these efforts, no attempts have succeeded.
And yet, people’s hobbies and even lives have been ruined by this repression. Even in our hobby, the CBLDF abounds with stories of comic shop owners who paid for a misstep or a failure to predict ever-shifting "community standards" usually embodied by the community’s loudest kook.
It’s not enough that Strongbad can type with boxing gloves on, apparently he can draw too. Or cut and paste, like so many others do. But we do admire his closing argument: Why can’t you just make a comic? Everyone knows that putting "web" in front of words just makes them crappier…
Top Shelf was kind enough to send me a big box of their books (which also included Super Spy), so let me dive right into it.
First was a cute little book (about the size of those “impulse purchase” books you sometimes see in Hallmark stores by the cash register) called Micrographica by Renee French. According to the front flap, this originally appeared online, and each of the drawings (one to a page) was originally drawn at about one centimeter square, which French did to keep the drawing loose by not allowing any redrawing. The story follows three small rodents of some kind (maybe guinea pigs?) who discover a “crapball” and then have odder adventures. It reads a bit like a black and white, colloquial version of a Jim Woodring story – weird things happen in an entertaining way, but the voices of the rodents is very modern-American, unlike Woodring. The story also features a much larger rodent-thing, unexplained facial swelling, a giant mountain of crap, an abandoned sandwich, and more. Hey, it’s only ten bucks – how can you go wrong?
Jeremy Tinder’s Black Ghost Apple Factory is more like a normal comics pamphlet (despite being only about four inches by six); it’s stapled, 48 pages, and contains a number of different stories. The seven stories here are all pretty clearly “indy” – they feature odd characters doing twisted versions of real-world activities, and usually have something to do with interpersonal relationships. (Also, in time-honored indy-comics fashion, those relationships are sad, depressing and unfulfilling.) Only two of the stories are overtly autobiographical — and one of those features Tinder befriending a bear, so you know it’s metaphorical at best — which is a nice change. Some of these stories are funny and some are touching; all work well and strike true. And that’s darn good a for a five-buck comics pamphlet.
Next month will mark the release of the remastered 10-disc DVD (and HD-DVD) set of the original Star Trek series, and the Trek publicity machine has been busy. We’ve seen an asteroid named for George Takei, both Takei and Nichelle Nichols appearing on Heroes (which also houses the proto-Spock), and the world will even witness William Shatner’s upcoming receipt of the Jules Verne Lifetime Achievement Award in Paris in December.
But for some Trekkers, that just isn’t enough. They need their own version of the Buffy musical phenomenon. And the powers that be are more than happy to oblige, at $12.50 a pop.
On November 13, the two-part remastered version of "The Menagerie," made using footage from the original ST pilot "The Cage," will be shown in select theatres throughout North America. The event will include an "in-theatre exclusive greeting from creator Gene Roddenberry’s son, Eugene ‘Rod’ Roddenberry" and of course the evening wouldn’t be complete without the mandatory making-of-behind-the-scenes self-congratulations. Bear in mind, the "event content," as it’s called, will be shown in its original (TV) format, 4×3.
Some of us are just looking forward (or backward, as the case may be) once more to a female Number One.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
