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Dial “B” For Back!

  • Uncategorized
  • September 7, 2007

x-1892222We’ve mentioned them before, but this is the day my favorite comics website, Dial B For Blog, returns to the Internet with all-new entries.

Written and designed by "Robby Reed," Dial B For Blog covers the history of the comic book form in detail and with panache. It’s always a joy to read, and even a guy like me who has consumed all the American comics history he could find over the past many decades learns a lot from each entry. Today, Robby begins a three part look into the real origins of the Batman, going beyong Anthony Tolin’s recent unearthing of The Shadow connection and noting relationships with folks like Alex Raymond and Will Eisner.

Better still, all the previous "issues" of Dial B For Blog remain online, all 388 of them!

Welcome back, "Robby Reed."

 

 

Meyer-Briggs for fans

  • News
  • September 7, 2007

The Myers-Briggs Personality Sorter was intended to be a general, universal personality ID that divides people into one of sixteen distinct personality types, along four axes for Introverted (I) or extroverted (E), Sensing (S) or Intuitive (N), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).

That said, these folks have applied it to the way we look at personalities:

ENTJ: The Evil Overlord

The ENTJ is best characterized by his charisma, his ability to grasp complex situations and to think flexibly and creatively, his keen and active intelligence, and his overwhelming desire to crush the world beneath his boot. ENTJs are naturally outgoing and love the company of other people, particulalry minions, henchmen, slaves, and the others they rule with ruthless efficiency….

ISTP: The Psycho Vigilante

ISTPs are quiet, unassuming people, who tend to be mechanically gifted but withdrawn and reserved. ISTPs often need a great deal of personal space and "alone time," which may give others the impression that they are aloof; in reality, this time is necessary to hide their secret identities….

ENTP: The Mad Scientist

The ENTP, like the ENTJ, is charismatic, outgoing, and intelligent. ENTPs are often quickwitted, clever, and genial; they typically display a highly organized, rational cognitive ability which makes them natural scientists and inventors….

Now if they can just come up with a conversion chart for comic book professionals, I’m golden.

MICHAEL DAVIS: Reading is Fundamental

  • News
  • September 7, 2007

rif-1245405My friend Tony Isabella has mentioned that I give a good rant, Tony; this is about to be the rant to beat all rants!

I am soooooo pissed. I had two columns ALREADY written so I could get ahead on my ComicMix deadlines. I have a great deal of work to do with my comic book line, a new project called The Adjuster (you will hear about that soon enough) and The Underground from Dark Horse, so I wanted a few S-No-C’s in the can so I could deal with those projects but then…

LAST SATURDAY I WATCHED THE TV SHOW CNN’S NEWSROOM!

I have no idea why they call this show CNN’S Newsroom. News is supposed to be reported fairly. This show was SO biased that it reminded me of the McCarthy witchhunts of the 50s.

The host of any news show should be impartial. The host of this show was about as impartial as a Jewish mother who has the choice between saving her child or Hitler from falling off a cliff.

The show focused on Black Entertainment Television’s (BET) hard-hitting satirical video Read A Book that asks the viewer to (wait for it) read a book. The key word in all of this is satirical, as in satire.

The creators of the video were on the show but were never given a chance to complete a thought. The host kept cutting them off. He would ask them a question and not let them answer. That’s real journalism right? They should change the name of the show from CNN’S Newsroom to Shut up while the host talks.

The “panel” consisted of concerned parents. In another journalistic milestone, there were NO parents on the opposing side. All the parents on the show hated the video. I told Reggie Hudlin when he first showed me Read A Book some months ago that some people would have a issue with this. I said some people.

Little did I know that the chorus CNN choose to sing would only include parents that hated the video? How fair is that? Let’s see, let’s have a new show debating the war in Iraq. Our panel will be George Bush, Dick Cheney and… that’s it! All you will need for CNN’S Newsroom.

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Sunday morning cartoons: Hi, Marlo!

  • News
  • September 6, 2007

Here’s an esoteric one for you– if you remember the sub-sub-basement of the Leo Dullo computer company, and the hapless Marlo who worked there, then you remember that after that five o’clock whistle blew, he’d hang out with a machine he brought to life, the Magic Movie Machine.

Marlo and the Magic Movie Machine ran in syndication in the late 70s, usually appearing on Sunday mornings on tv stations that had to put some educational programming in, but generated a love/Pavlovian reflex that has only grown over the years. So come on back with us behind the fake bookcase…

Wachoski Brothers No More!

  • News
  • September 6, 2007

wachowshis-5019789Yes, it’s true. The Wachowski Brothers, who started writing comics for Marvel before they went on to direct The Matrix trilogy, wrote and produced the V For Vendetta movie, publish Burlyman Comics (home of Doc Frankenstein and Shaolin Cowboy), and now making Speed Racer, exist no longer.

Why? Well, one of them’s not a brother anymore.

Larry Wachowski has completed his gender reassignment and is now going by the name Lana. From now on, Lana and brother Andy will now be known simply as "The Wachowskis", and it’s expected that Andy will be handling the press junkets for Speed Racer.

dickt-9878663

BIG BROADCAST: Calling All Crimestoppers!

dickt-9878663For over 75 years, this copy has put away more bad guys than Batman, the CSI Guys and Joe Friday combined. He’s gone from comic strips to radio, movie serials, TV, comics and even a big screen flirtation with Madonna. Now there is a group working hard to give Dick Tracy the credit he deserves – and you can help! On other fronts, today’s Big ComicMix Broadcast tells you how NBC makes sure you don’t miss a new show, DC gives you some big hoops to jump through to get variant covers and Canada gets a really cool cartoon channel!

No need to whip out that widescreen surround-sound wristwatch home theater system – just PRESS THE BUTTON!

 

Sarah Jane’s Back Revealed

  • News
  • September 6, 2007

sjs1-2106191After a successful pilot was aired at the end of last year, the second Doctor Who spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures, will begin airing in England the end of this month.

Oriented more towards children the way Torchwood is geared towards adults, the ten-episode season will see the return of various Doctor Who villains, including the Slitheen. The production and writing crew will be the same as that for Doctor Who and Torchwood, masterminded by executive producer Russell T. Davies.

Thus far, Sarah Jane Smith is the only continuing human character from the classic series to return to the new Whoverse. Elisabeth Sladen returns to the role she made famous with Doctors three and four, and in nine original audio dramas from Big Finish Productions.

 

COMICS LINKS: Times Gets It Late

  • News
  • September 6, 2007

Comics Links

The New York Times declares that Britain is finally embracing the graphic novel. Well, good for them!

Inside Pulse apparently has a story about comics, but some kind of SQL error is preventing me from actually reading it. Perhaps simply knowing it exists will give some readers a tiny bit of pleasure.

Publishers Weekly Comics Week interviews Gravitation creator Maki Murakami.

PWCW also talked to Ioannis Mentzas about the upcoming English-language publication of Osamu Tezuka’s massive MW.

Comic Book Resources interviews Y: The Last Man editor Will Dennis about the upcoming end of that series.

The Beat tries to figure out what graphic novels have been selling the best this year.

Comics Should Be Good has a long, impressively detailed (even, one might say, nitpicky) list of character names used, in one form or another, by both Marvel and DC. Study it and win bar bets next year at San Diego!

Comics Reviews

Jeff VanderMeer’s new ComicBookSlut column at Bookslut looks at Gipi’s Notes for a War Story, Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, and more.

The New York Sun reviews a new biography of Ronald Reagan in comics form.

Comics Reporter reviews the new issue of Gabrielle Bell’s Lucky.

Another Comics Reporter review (by another hand): Greffier by Joann Sfar.

At The Savage Critics, Graeme McMillan reviews Amazons Attack #6 and other things.

Newsarama picks their favorite books of the week.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Bourne To Run

  • News
  • September 6, 2007

bourne-art-4988901Spoiler Alert: This week I’m discussing the three Jason Bourne movies and I may wind up revealing plot points, especially of the most recent film out, The Bourne Ultimatum. If you’re planning to see the movie, go see it first. More fun that way.

Just recently I got around to seeing The Bourne Ultimatum, the third in the Jason Bourne series of films starring Matt Damon. All are supposedly based on novels by the late Robert Ludlum – at least, to the degree that the James Bond films were based on the Ian Fleming novels, which meant they basically used the title and one or two elements, if that.

Which is one of its problems for the Ludlum fans. From what I understand, they also don’t like Matt Damon, saying that he’s too young or not right. While I haven’t read the Bourne novels, I have read one or two other Ludlum books and enjoyed them well enough. And I do have sympathy for their position. I complained about the SciFi Network’s version of The Dresden Files because they had so little to do with the actual series of books, which are wonderful. The TV series wasn’t. I sometimes wonder why H’weird buys up properties and then makes wholesale changes in them to the point that they have very little to do with the original concept. The current Flash Gordon series which both I and ComicMix EIC Mike Gold loathe (Mike, you lasted an episode more than I did) is a case in point.

All that said – I’m a big fan of the Bourne movies and more so after the third. I stumbled on the three by accident. (For the record, the three films are The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.) I happened to come across the Supremacy while I was channel surfing one evening, coming in after it started and found myself hooked. When the movie was on again, the lovely and talented Mary joined me and was also drawn in. We kept on missing the opening and it took about three viewings before we finally saw the film all the way through. We then got a hold of the first film and now have the first two on DVD. Supremacy, in particular, has become one of our favorite films.

A quick general summary is in order. Jason Bourne is an amnesiac Black Ops agent working for a super-secret program within the CIA called The Treadstone Project. He’s created to be a human weapon, a master assassin, with mad skills and an ability to improvise. When The Bourne Identity begins, the man known as Jason Bourne is hauled out of the sea by some Mediterranean fishermen. He’s been shot and he has amnesia. Numbers tattooed on his hip turn out to be a Swiss banking account. In a safety deposit box he finds passports and lots of money.

 

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Swamp Thing On Shorts

  • News
  • September 5, 2007

If you’re one of the millions of Americans who are pissed you’re too big for Underoos, you can take comfort in the knowledge that next spring adult sportswear manufacturer Salvage is going to be coming out with a line of clothing that incorporates Superman, Batman and next year’s Dark Knight movie.

No word on Wonder Woman being part of the line. Some will find this to be quite disappointing; personally, I’m holding out for Swamp Thing.

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