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9 Superpowers You Might Actually Want

  • News
  • August 21, 2007

From The Best Article Every Day, 9 Superpowers You Might Actually Want:

Humor ESP. You’ve got a great joke involving St. Peter, a stripper, and a tricycle, but you’re not sure how it will go over with your friend’s new boyfriend, whom you’ve only met once but get the feeling doesn’t really like you. Your humor ESP will let you know whether the joke will end in laughs or a theological debate. This peculiar psychic ability also comes in handy when you want to come up with the exact line to scare off that guy at the bar who just won’t leave you alone.

I’ve got a few of my own:

Time Dilation & Compression: Make those slow movies fly by and meetings with the in-laws fly by, and stretch out that vacation time and get a few extra hours to finish art corrections.

Parking Spot Creation: The ability to magically have a parking spot appear wherever and whenever you need one.

Human Computer Antivirus: Nuff said.

What are yours? Leave them in comments.

DENNIS O’NEIL: On The Road Again

  • News
  • August 21, 2007

Jack Kerouac’s novel On The Road is 50 years old.

“And this has exactly what to do with comics?” demands the snotty guy in the corner. Well, actually, not much, but maybe if we stretch, a little something. Patience, please.

If you know people my age, or a bit younger, you may have heard On The Road stories. Mine is pretty banal: I was fairly unhappy at school (I was always fairly unhappy at schools, except when I was actively miserable) and I read and had my mind altered by Kerouac’s book which is, among other things, a paean to travel and the highway. So, one morning, I went down to breakfast, borrowed about forty bucks from my father and, blowing off university exam week, got on a bus for New Orleans.

Once there, I didn’t do much: checked into a Y, hung out, walked around, had a friendly lady on Bourbon Street offer to teach me everything about life for only five dollars. I kind of guessed what she was talking about and, being the Good Catholic Boy that I was, politely declined. Then I boarded another Greyhound and went home. No hitchhiking, not that trip, though there was plenty later. (And, by the way, don’t try this at home. Hitchhiking in the 50s and 60s was not without hazards, but not nearly as dangerous as it is now.)

“Did someone mention comic books? This column, this whole dern website, is supposed to be about comics.” The snotty guy in the corner again. Okay, be at peace, brother, and give me another paragraph or two.

Kerouac was, as I’m sure everyone except the guy in the corner knows, the most famous and visible member of a loose confederation of novelists, poets, and musicians that became known as The Beat Generation. I’ve never heard, or read, any of them even evidencing knowledge that comics existed. But they were contrarians that believed that most conventional wisdom was erroneous, that genuine American values involved peace and understanding and, incidentally, that maybe mainstream literary and critical folk – the Establishment – did not own the last word on artistic matters.

Jump ahead a few years to the mid-60s and here we are, on college campuses, and what are the bright rebels reading? Well, a few – those who still wear ties on Sunday – are still delving into Catcher In The Rye, and a few more are grokking Stranger In A Strange Land, but the real nonconformists, the bright ones, are into comics, particularly Marvel comics.

(more…)

Halo ActionClix Coming Soon

  • News
  • August 20, 2007

halo-2356691Halo 2 launched to the single biggest day in entertainment history grossing $125 million and, with the third game’s release rapidly approaching, the Halo franchise is looking to extend their dominance to the miniatures market with Halo ActionClix.

Launching in September, Halo ActionClix is changing many of the rules from Wizkids’ other ‘Clix games to make game play more like the video game.  Players can switch weapons mid combat, for example, if you were playing a figure of MasterChief with a sniper rifle and decided that the best weapon for the situation was, in fact, the shotgun you could spend an action to swap out one figure for the other.  Another feature more like a video-game is that figures do not stay dead, rather they will respawn at pre-determined points on the map.

Halo ActionClix also features exclusive Halo 3 preview content.  Figures from the initial set will be from the upcoming game; in many instances this will be gamers’ first glimpse at these characters.

The game launches this September with four- and five-figure booster packs and the Hunter Combat Pack Starter Set.  Subsequent releases will be vehicle packs and an expansion focusing on Halo 3 in earnest, all by the end of the year.

You’re kidding: Joan Collins???

  • Uncategorized
  • August 20, 2007

joancollins3-6588644As the next season of Doctor Who is prepping up for shooting, casting information is flowing fast and furious. London’s News of the World reveals Joan Collins, of Dynasty and Star Trek fame, will be playing arch-villain The Rani.

The Rani appeared in the classic series twice, first with Colin Baker in "The Mark of the Rani" and later with Sylvester McCoy in "Time and the Rani." She was played by Kate O’Mara who, coincidentially, played Joan Collins’ younger sister in Dynasty.

The Rani marks the third Gallifreyan to survive obilvion by the Daleks. The News of the World calls Collins’ Rani as "Alexis Colby with a sonic screwdriver."

No word yet on when Series Four is expected to start, but it is likely it won’t begin until late April or May, after Series Two of Torchwood has completed its run.

Metal Men, Naruto, and Other Unfathomable Things

  • Uncategorized
  • August 20, 2007

metalmen-9247996

Comics Links

Comic Book Resources looks back at the long, odd history of the Metal Men.

The Toronto Star reports on a Toronto Comic Arts Festival presentation on four wordless graphic novels from the early 20th century.

If you’re like me, and spent much of the weekend in the company of kids watching a Naruto marathon, you might also find this Paul Gravette lecture about Naruto to be useful in explaining what the heck it all is about.

Comics Should Be Good takes a look at all of Image Comics’s October covers.

Mike Sterling discovers that if you stare at a poster of Superman’s funeral long enough, the abyss also gazes into you.

Comics Reviews

Comics Reporter reviews Rian Hughes’s Yesterday’s Tomorrows.

The New York Times reviews Emily Flake’s These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves and Jessica Bruder’s Burning Book.

Warren Peace Sings The Blues reviews Whiteout by Rucka and Lieber.

SF/Fantasy Links

Douglas Cohen responds to comments and criticisms of his drive to increase subscriptions for print SF/Fantasy magazines.

Irene Gallo of The Art Department showcases Jon Foster’s covers for Timothy Zahn’s “Dragonback” series.

The Hugo Awards now have a website of their own – just in time for this year’s awards, which will be announced at Nippon 2007 in less than two weeks.

The UK SF Book News Network lists all of the newly-published books that they’ve received in the last three weeks.

(more…)

The Dark Knight Senator

  • Uncategorized
  • August 20, 2007

patrick_leahy-2664901Long-time Batman fan Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont will be appearing in next year’s movie The Dark Knight.

This isn’t the first time the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has been involved with the character, having done voice acting on the Batman cartoons and having written the preface for The Dark Knight Archives Volume One (his piece was ghost-edited, by the way, by ComicMix’s editor-in-chief). His compensation will be donated to charity.

No word on whether Leahy’s been signed to any sequels.

MIKE GOLD: Comic Conned-Out

  • News
  • August 20, 2007

mikegold100-7174689A whole bunch of us ComicMixers have been attending various and sundry comic book conventions over the past half-year, and, having just come back from Chicago Wizard World, I’ve got a few observations.

For the record, we attended Comic Con in New York, Comic Con in Pittsburgh, I-Con in Stony Brook, New York, Heroes in Charlotte, North Carolina, MoCCA in NYC, the Big Apple Con in NYC, Comic-Con in San Diego, and Wizard World in Chicago. We also did the annual Book Fair and the Licensing Show, both in Manhattan. We’ve got at least three more shows coming up: the Baltimore Comic Con, another Big Apple show in Manhattan, and Mid-Ohio Con in the middle of Ohio.

MOST INTERESTING SIGHT: Scalpers hawking one-day passes at the San Diego Comic-Con. Just like at sports events and concerts. Pretty amazing. I wonder if SDCC saw many counterfeits? I wonder if I could trade my pass for two tickets to The Police?

adam-strange-1216399BEST COSTUME: This is a close call, and sadly I don’t know the name of the winner. But he dressed up as Adam Strange in a costume so on-model Murphy Anderson would have swooned. Take a look; he’s the guy with the ray guns.

BEST PRESENCE OF COSTUMED FANS: I-Con, in Long Island. Damn near everybody was in a costume. Some furry, which confuses some people. But if you’re looking for the thrill of being surrounded by hundreds of costumed college students, many of whom are armed, I-Con won’t let you down.

BEST EXPOSITORY MOMENT: When Adriane Nash explained the concept and activities of “furries” to Michael Davis while at dinner in Chicago. ‘Nuff said.

BEST REUNIONS: Len Wein and I are old friends, but for some reason we haven’t been in contact for a while. A sweet, gentle, funny, talented man, Len will be visiting Munden’s Bar sometime soon. Len and I got together at Michael Davis’s SDCC dinner party, which was my second favorite meal of the convention season thus far (and it was a close second). Also, and equally, Mindy Newell, at MoCCA. Mindy used to write comics; Mindy should be writing comics. Or something. A great talent, a wonderful human being. Hiya, Mindy!

BEST MEAL: The post-Wizard World decompress at Chicago’s Gulliver’s Restaurant, the only place I can get genuine Italian beef with barbecue sauce along with the Italian beef goo. ComicMixers Adriane Nash, Mike Raub, Kai Connelly, Andrew Pepoy, and Chris Burnham joined my wife Linda and me, along with artist Reilly Brown and writer, professor and fellow Gulliver’s habituater Len Strazewski. (more…)

Big Doctor Who Crossover Next Season?

  • Uncategorized
  • August 19, 2007

7p-video-4282238According to Outpost Gallifrey, at a convention in New Zealand the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, stated Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor, is going to appear in a multiple Doctor episode this coming season. He did not say that he, McCoy, would be appearing, nor did he say that any of the other surviving Doctors (other than David Tennant, of course) would be in attendance.

As usualy, the BBC has no comment. The original series offered at least three shows where previous incarnations of the Doctor popped up to help save – and/or confuse – the day.

Thanks to our pal Lisa Sullivan for the lead.

Another ComicMix summer party

  • News
  • August 19, 2007

Can’t stay long, gotta get back to ComicMix‘er Kai Connolly’s birthday party.  ComicMix columnists wrote stuff this past week.  Here it is:

And that’s not even including tons of news wrapups from Andrew Wheeler, loads of reviews, even a pool-playing post!  By the way, today’s bash emanates from the home of Mellifluous Mike Raub, who has arranged it all and still had time for his Big ComicMix Broadcasts:

The me who wrote this entry this morning hopes the Raub Residence will be as air-conditioned as the Riggs Residence…

RIC MEYERS: The Dark Labyrinth

  • News
  • August 19, 2007

ric-meyers-100-2021640Twenty-five years ago, the late, great Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, tried to beat Lord of the Rings to the cinematic punch by co-writing and co-directing a similar and derivative, yet pioneering and daring, “adult” fantasy. Four years after that, approximately twenty-one years ago, he tried to combine Star Wars, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Where the Wild Things Are, and M.C. Escher, among other things, to create a new coming of age teen tale.

This week, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is releasing handsomely packaged, two-disc, special editions of both these cult classics – The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. In each, Henson managed to find a mature theme to impart (that living beings are a combination of good and bad, not one or the other, and that teens should choose their own path and not put themselves in others’ power, be they loves or peers), but, unfortunately, communicated them in a stagy, plasticky, Las Vegas/ DisneyWorld/ Universal Studios Theme Park kind of way.

darkcrystal-5125456He seemed to have little choice, of course, since his chosen medium was the puppet, and, back in the 80s he was limited to what those puppets could achieve, no matter how hard he pushed their envelope. What these new DVDs have over his old movies is that very knowledge. Once a viewer knows how hard he tried and how much work was put into pulling the difficult concepts off, new admiration for the attempts, if not the finished products, is hard to suppress.

It’s little wonder that both special editions were released at the same time, since the extras for both were obviously made at the same time. Both include the original, Henson-produced “making of” documentaries released back in the 80’s, as well as two new behind-the-scenes featurettes incorporating “rediscovered” test footage and 21st century interviews with those involved – most of whom worked on both movies. Entertaining discoveries can be enjoyed on both.

For The Dark Crystal, co-directed by Henson (Kermit) and Frank Oz (Miss Piggy/Yoda), it becomes clear that Henson was the level-headed yin to Oz’s more forceful yang, and, like the team of Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder before them, never were quite as good separate as they were with each other.

The biggest kick on Labyrinth is the discovery that Star Trek the Next Generation’s doctor, Cynthia “Gates” McFadden, was the film’s dance choreographer. She expresses admiration for the project and love for Henson, as does the likes of conceptual artist Brian Froud, scriptwriter and Monty Python member Terry Jones, and producer George Lucas. (more…)

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