Now it’s our turn to examine the Big ComicMix News here at the Big ComicMix Broadcast as Editor-In-Chief Mike Gold spells it out, right from the horse’s mouth and direct from that now famous panel at Baltimore this past weekend!
Plus, we’ve got a boatload of new comics and DVDs to pick through, news on some surprising new titles on the way from DC and a quick look at the next phase for The Lone Ranger in comics.
Just PRESS THE big ol’ BUTTON, Kemo Sabe!
Warner Home Video released the final set in their "complete" Tom and Jerry DVD collection – and it ain’t so complete. It’s missing the cartoons "Mouse Cleaning" and "Casanova Cat."
In their official statement, WHV said they "made the decision to omit these two shorts because, regardless of their historical context and artistic value, the offensiveness of certain scenes containing inappropriate racial stereotypes would diminish the enjoyment of the Collection’s 35 other classic cartoons for a large segment of the audience." Like their Popeye and Looney Tunes series, the Tom and Jerry box sets are labeled for mature audiences.
Like so many other cowardly companies who make as if white-washing (literally) history is a means for effective change, Warners would prefer to ignore their corporate past by giving us a revisionist version of our culture, ignoring the old adage "those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
Or maybe they’re just too damn cheap to commission a DVD documentary that puts all this into perspective.
As for me, I’m still waiting on a tribute to formerly legendary but now all but forgotten comedian Tim Moore, one of America’s greatest performers. Viacom/Paramount, you, too, are a bunch of spinless pussies.
Comics Links
The Washington Post Express interviews Percy Carey, who recently told his life story in the graphic novel Sentences. Carey, best known as an underground rapper, also appeared on Sesame Street as a seven-year-old.
Comic Book Resources interrogates Jonathan Hickman, writer/colorist of the upcoming A Red Mass for Mars.
Tom Spurgeon of Comics Reporter defends the humble comics shop.
Sequential Tart interviews Jesse Hamm, artist of Good As Lily.
Turning to the subjeect of For Better or For Worse: Lynn Johnston opens up a new front in her propaganda war to prove that Liz and Anthony are destined to be together. In other news, we have always been at war with Eastasia.
The Baltimore Sun visited the Baltimore Comic-Con.
Artist Jesse Hamm tells Comics Should Be Good about eight things he wants to see more of in comics.
Comics Reviews
Richard of Forbidden Planet International reviews The Plain Janes by Cecil Castelucci and Jim Rugg.
Dana of Comics Fodder reviews this week’s Marvels.
Warren Peace Sings the Blues reviews the first issue of Andi Watson’s new comic, Glister.
Occasional Superheroine is puzzled by the new Infinity, Inc. series.
The LA Times reviews Osamu Tezuka’s Apollo’s Song (and a Robert Silverberg short story collection from Subterranean – ha ha, SF readers! You can’t just skip over the comics links blithely, can you? It’s all good stuff, so sit back and check it all out.)
Living Between Wednesdays gets to last week’s comics just ahead of this week’s comics.
From The Savage Critics:
If you’re a dedicated reader of movie end credits, the name Michael Uslan might be familiar to you. If it isn’t…let’s remedy that.
If you know of Mike, it’s probably because he was executive producer of all the recent Batman flicks, including Catwoman and The Dark Knight, coming to a theater near you next June. He’s also been involved in producing a lot of other stuff for screens both large and small. And he’s done considerable writing, some of which was for comic books. I first met him when he was a law student at Indiana State University in Bloomington, where he was teaching the first accredited college course in comics and a related correspondence course; he was nice enough to invite me to meet his class.
Mike’s latest project – and here we come to this week’s real subject – is a documentary movie on comics super heroes to have its world premiere on September 15 at the Montclair Art Museum which is located, no surprise, in a town called Montclair in a state called New Jersey, a short drive or train ride from New York City. The movie screening is part of a much bigger deal, an exhibit of about 150 examples of comics art and related stuff at the museum that is currently there and is not leaving until January 13th of next year. The screening is scheduled for 4:30 in the afternoon.
And if you’re still not satisfied, if that isn’t enough…On October 13th the museum will shelter a panel discussion on comics which will put Mr. Uslan, Danny Fingeroth, Tom DeFalco, and me in front of anyone who cares to show up, listen, ask questions. Genuflecting and flinging rose blossoms at us are optional.
I haven’t visited the exhibit yet, but everything I know about it indicates that it’s worth going a bit out of your way to see. If you do – go out of your way to see it, that is, or even if you plan to see it without going out of your way – you might want some info. You can get it by visiting www.montclairartmuseum.org or phoning (973) 746-5555. And while I’m in reporter mode, one final thing, the museum’s address is 3 South Mountain Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07042
I believe that at one time it would have been customary to, at this point, urge you to “be there or be square.” Aren’t we glad that time is past!
And aren’t we glad that comics have come to a place where respectable institutions promote and host educational efforts on their behalf? Well, yes, with some qualification. Producing comics isn’t the informal, loosey-goosey business it once was, and so maybe a little less fun. And I, for one, am not entirely comfortable with all this respectability. I’m not happy that pretty young women behind checkout counters call me sir, either. But better respectability than oblivion and, come to think of it, better being called sir than oblivion, too.
RECOMMENDED READING: Walden and Civil Disobedience, both by Henry David Thoreau.
Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.
I like everything but the logo. Downey rocks. And flies. Without drugs, too!
Here it is, go nuts: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/large_trailer.html
It happens the day after May Day, next.
Comics Links
They’re sold out now, but for a brief, shining moment, the world had a chance to buy knitted Hellboy dolls. (Figures? Plushes? What do you call these things?) [via Newsarama]
This weekend, The New York Times dug through Stan Lee’s boxes of old photos for an article about the places he’s lived.
Comic Book Resources interviews Kent Williams.
The Friends of Lulu are looking for new board members, sayeth The Beat.
The Beat lists Diamond graphic novel sales charts from 2006 and 2007 (to date).
The Harlan Ellison/Fantagraphics legal matter just will not die…even after the supposedly final settlement, Ellison has now balked at posting the required-by-the-agreement 500-word rebuttal by Fantagraphics’s Gary Groth to three specific claims Ellison made about Groth. The unposted statement, and Ellison’s lawyer’s “not gonna do it” letter, are in the middle of this long post at The Beat.
Comics Reporter interviews Warren Craghead. (No, I didn’t know who he was, either. But CR likes him…)
The ComicBloc interviews Sean McKeever.
Some guy named Dan Stafford:
1) wrote polite letters to various comics folks, like R. Crumb, Joe Matt, and James Kochalka, asking some questions.
2) got letters back from same, with answers to those questions.
The Bookseller (the UK’s magazine of bookselling) recently reported that UK manga publishers have had to beg the big chains over there to expand the space devoted to manga. Either the UK market is vastly different from the US, or Waterstone’s just isn’t that interested in making great piles of money…
Comics Reviews
The Joplin Independent reviews the Marvel comics adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.
The Globe and Mail reviews a bunch of graphic novels and comics, starting with Sara Varon’s Robot Dreams.
Hannibal Tabu of Comic Book Resources lists his “buy pile” for this week.
Brian Cronin of Comics Should Be Good reviews Nick Abadzis’s Laika.
Greg Burgas of Comics Should Be Good reviews this week’s comics, starting with Action Philosophers! #9.
Greg Hatcher of CSBG reviews a pile of stuff he got for free.
From The Savage Critics:
With the announcement that Jim Shooter is returning to a regular writing gig on Legion of Super-Heroes, he takes over a different title as well: he’s the man with the longest writing career currently writing a comic series.
Jim’s first comic, as we all know, was Adventure Comics #346, cover dated July 1966. Taking over Legion means that his career as a comics writer now spans over 41 years. But did you know that Jim laid out those early Legion stories as well as writing them?
Some ups and some downs this week in our little pop culture playground. DC takes a few steps back with some scheduling issues and then brings Jim Shooter back in the spotlight, while the internet seems to be crammed with some very taste time wasters.
• If you miss the premiere of the Iron Man footage on MTV’s The Hills Monday night, it will show up on Tuesday on Apple’s trailer site.
• The questions rare on concerning that J.J. Abrams "monster" flick, and there are continued updates, opinions and more than one red herring (as far as I’m concerned) here . If you are at work, keep a hand on the speaker so the scary sounds don’t freak out the guy in the next cubicle.
• Speaking of controversy, the fight over "the best costume in comics" rages on and you can see one list of choices now here.
• You probably already went there days ago, but in case you still haven’t seen Alex Ross’ amazing cover to DC’s upcoming Heroes hardcover, it is here
Meanwhile, here at the ComicMix Hall Of Justice, we are gearing up for our own Big Week. If you are lucky enough to be at the Baltimore ComicCon, you know what I mean – but the rest of us will see AND hear it right here on the site in a couple of days!
Once again I’m here at home base whilst my ComicMix colleagues have more convention fun, this time at Baltimore where, just about at the time you read this, The Big Announcement will be made. I do hope it’s good news! Meanwhile, let’s not forget that we "Phase One-ers" are still around cranking out our weekly columns:
And of course, Mellifluous Mike Raub edges ever closer to the hundredth Big ComicMix Broadcast:
Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, folks!
O.K. The cat’s out of the bag.
What is probably the worst kept “secret” in the history of comics, known only to about 200 writers, artists, staffers, collaborators, co-conspirators, friends, and family plus whomever they might have told, was let loose in Baltimore yesterday. Or actually earlier today since I’m posting this one early – like, a couple hours after our Baltimore panel. Or, since I’m writing this on Thursday, in about 69 hours.
That’s what I love about the Internets. It’s the closest we’ll get to time travel, at least any time “soon.”
Here’s what we revealed. Here’s the high-concept pitch.
In a few weeks, we’re adding the first of several major components to ComicMix. We’re doing brand-new serialized online comics by major comics talent, in traditional comics format, with an amazingly cool proprietary reader, and it’s all for free.
Please note. I said “brand-new” and “major comics talent.” And I said free.
What talent, you might ask? Well, to name but a few, and in alphabetical order, we’re talking about Mike Baron, Rick Burchett, Chris Burnham, Michael Davis, Ian Gibson, Dick Giordano, Mike Gold, Stuart Gordon, Mike Grell, Bo Hampton, Glenn Hauman, Marc Hempel, Lovern Kindierski, Linda Lessman, Jay Lynch, Frank McLaughlin, William Messner-Loebs, John Ostrander, Andrew Pepoy, Bob Pinaha, Michael H. Price, Bill Reinhold, Nick Runge, John K. Snyder III, Joe Staton, Martha Thomases, Robert Tinnell, Timothy Truman, Trevor Von Eeden, Mark Evan Walker, Matt Webb, Mark Wheatley, Skip Williamson, Marv Wolfman, and John Workman. And more. You think we’re going to tell you everything?
But we will say this: here are the features we’re working on: Black Ice, Demons of Sherwood, EZ Street, Fashion In Action, Fishhead, Glamours Inc., GrimJack, Jack Johnson, Jon Sable Freelance, Munden’s Bar, Naked Brain, PayDay, The Prowler, Simone & Ajax, and White Viper. All are trademarks of their owners, by the way, so watch your ass or Glenn Hauman will get very angry. If he’s got to “TM” everything in sight, you should respect his loving efforts. And not all of that stuff will be going up on Day One – we’ll be starting with six.
We’ll also be showing off our new design for ComicMix. Brian, Glenn and the Tech-Team of Secret Infinite Civil Crisis Warriors have been at it since Hector was a pup, and, damn, it looks great. They’re in the home stretch. And all this starts happening… (more…)
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