One of the very few entry portals to the world of comics is coming to an end.

Disney Adventures, the monthly supermarket digest magazine containing a huge chunk of original Disney-related comic strips, will be ending its 17 year run with its November issue. This comes despite an increase of ad pages and a circulation of 1,200,000 copies – making Disney Adventures one of the highest circulation comics magazines in America.

Disney has had some success with their occasional comics-only Comics Zone editions, and one hopes this might continue. The publisher says they will be adding a new title or two to their line-up.

There are very, very few ways young readers come across comics; outside of Disney Adventures, only the sundry Archie digests come to mind. Once again, we’re left wondering how the next generation of Americas are going to discover the comics form.

Perhaps… the Internet?

Galaxy Quest is one of my favorite movies. I mean, go wrong with Alan Rickman and Tony Shalhoub, you know? And even the nominal stars of the ensemble, Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, go down pretty easily in this brilliant vehicle. But there’s one scene that makes me cringe every time I see it.

The bad guy, Sarris, has coerced Jason Nesmith to confess to Mathesar, who idolizes "Captain Taggart" and the Galaxy Quest crew, that he and his fellow Terrans are ordinary actors, something Jason has been trying to figure out how to do without success for much of the movie as Mathesar’s people have no concept of, I guess, showbiz. But it’s the way Sarris forces his hand that makes me squirm:

Jason: Mathesar, there’s no such person as Captain Taggart. My name is Jason Nesmith. I’m an actor. We’re all actors.

Sarris: He doesn’t understand. Explain as you would a child.

Jason: We, uh, we pretended. [On Malthesar’s blank look.] We lied. I’m not a commander. There’s no National Space Exploration Administration. We don’t have a ship… It’s all fake. Just like me.

Mathesar: But why…?

Jason: It’s difficult to explain. On our planet, we, uh… we pretend to… to entertain.

I was reminded of this scene again just recently when blogger Skot Kirruk at Izzle pfaff! said much the same thing:

[begin quote] I try not to lie. And when I do lie, I try to lie in such a hyperbolic, overblown fashion that I hope that it is patently obvious that I’m just making shit up. I probably fail at this, though. It’s just too easy to lie. Writers lie all the time, because most of the time, life is just fucking dull. So we pull out our little tricks, and we lie. We insert or import in false details to serve an anecdote… Writers are liars. Don’t trust them.

And especially don’t trust me, assuming that you even consider me a writer, as opposed to some twitchy dilettante. I’m also an actor, so I’m also trained in lying. I think I’m pretty good at it… It’s no good protesting that when people go to the theater (and nobody does any more, but never mind), that the audience is damn well expecting that I lie to them: it’s my job. It’s no good because we are delighted to take those very same skills and exploit them for our own base wants and needs.

I have been taught to lie, we realize at some point. This could be awesome.

And so we do. But it’s more sinister than even that. It’s more sinister because actors aren’t just trained to lie, they are trained to lie with the unshakable conviction that they are not lying at all… Don’t ever listen to actors or writers, or worse, some unholy combination of both. They are liars and aren’t to be trusted. [end quote]

Naturally, I believe everything I’ve just quoted to be absolute hogwash. In other words, a lie.

(more…)

The Big ComicMix Broadcast kicks off our week long look at collecting toys with a shopping trip to one of the biggest online action figure dealers and a sneak peek at what the next wave of hot product will be. Then, speaking of hot product, it’s time for another dive into this week’s pile of new comics and DVDs ,including a preview of Image Comics’ Bonds #1 from creator Durwin Talon. AND we’ve got the latest news of Kristen Bell on Heroes  and Katie Holmes as…WONDER WOMAN?

Insert your own Tom Cruise joke here and PRESS THE BUTTON!