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GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Laika

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This graphic novel is pretty good just on its own terms, but it’s an excellent object lesson. If you know of anyone who thinks that comics are essentially limited in scope to brightly-clad folks punching each other with great vigor, this will help to expand their horizons. It’s the story of Laika, a Russian dog who was the first living creature from Earth deliberately sent outside the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s an impressively-researched story braiding a fictional back-story for Laika (and several other characters I believe are also fictionalized) with the story of the “Chief Designer” of the early Russian space program, Sergei Korolev. And all that is told in comics, and, I suspect, primarily aimed at the grade 6-12 audience.

I’m not familiar with Adadzis’s work, but the note on him in [[[Laika]]] calls him an editorial consultant who “creates words and pictures for a living and loves both equally.” According to his website, muck of his work has been for children, especially recently, though he did something called Millennium Fever (with Duncan Fegredo) for Vertigo in 1995 and [[[Children of the Voyager]]] (with Paul Johnson) for Marvel in 1993.

Laika is a dense book; we start off with a flashback to Korolev’s release from the gulag in 1939, stop briefly at the first successful Sputnik launch in 1957, and then dive back into a long account of the life of a dog. (Who, as we all can guess, eventually becomes Laika.) This graphic novel is about two hundred pages long, and each page has about ten small panels, in shifting grids with occasional snippets of white space. And there’s quite a lot of dialogue along the way, in what I’m tempted to call the Russian manner. It’s not a quick read by any means, and the panels can get quite cramped at times. It’s never difficult to read, but there is an awful lot here. Those who judge books by how much time they take to read should enjoy Laika.

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MARTHA THOMASES: Hot Fun in the Summertime

  • News
  • August 11, 2007

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.  Fish are jumpin, and the cotton is high.  Or so I’m told.  Living in a major metropolitan area in the twenty-first century, I have to take such things on faith.

This summer, the fun times for someone like me are largely political.  The presidential election is over a year away.  The first primaries are six months away.  Nothing is going to be decided any time soon, so I can pretend it will all turn out for the best. 

I spent the summer I was 15 going “clean for Gene,” campaigning for Eugene McCarthy, who was running against Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic nomination on an anti-war platform.  Four years later, I ran as an alternate delegate for George McGovern. Four years ago, I nearly got arrested outside the Republican convention up the street from here.  Presidential campaigns are fun!

Which is not to say they couldn’t be much more fun.  The problem is that presidential candidates tend to be politicians.  They spend all their time hustling campaign funds, writing policy, and meeting the public.  They go on the Sunday morning news shows and show how serious they are.  They go on Oprah or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to show they’re regular folks who can take a joke.

They don’t save the world from alien invasions.  They don’t even fight crime.

Presidential campaigns would be a lot more fun if, instead of Republicans versus Democrats, it was Marvel versus DC.   For example debates between:

 

Captain America and Superman on immigration reform.

Luke Cage and John (Green Lantern) Stewart on affirmative action.

Thor and Wonder Woman about the separation of Church and State.

Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne on the inheritance tax.

Storm and Aquaman on global warming.

The Punisher and Batman on prison reform.

Professor X and Green Arrow on family values.

The Avengers and the Justice League on national security.

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WW-CHICAGO: Three to the fourth power!

stampsmarvel250-4325020Today the Big ComicMix Broadcast is at Wizard World Chicago, where the US Post Office kicked off the way by unveiling the Marvel Stamp Collection, plus the debut of the Ultimate Spider-Man Project from the Hero Initiative which was unleashed here as well. DC dropped a few news bombs which we cover and then there’s a new Venom series to talk about from Marvel and so much more.

PRESS THE BUTTON now so we can dish!

 

 

WW-CHICAGO: Paul Jenkins, pool shark

  • Uncategorized
  • August 10, 2007

pauljenkinspool-9217772My mama told me never to play pool against someone who brings his own cue. I shudder to think what she’d say about someone who brought his own pool table.

Paul Jenkins (The Sentry, Wolverine, The Darkness) is shooting pool at the Hero Initiative booth (#140) at $30 a game, 8-ball or 9-ball. If you win, you get prizes. That’s if you win. So far, I haven’t seen anybody do that. I suppose it’s possible, I mean, he has missed shots, and I wasn’t there all day, and they do have prizes there, just in case, but…

Well, it’s for a good cause. So if you lose, you can say that you planned to lose, to maximize your donation.

Yeah, right.

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WW-CHICAGO: The Big Wiener

  • News
  • August 10, 2007

Perhaps the coolest event in Chicago at the start of this year’s Wizard World involved costumed characters and big cars, but it wasn’t at the convention center. It was downtown, right in front of the offices of the Chicago Tribune.

Yes, Li’l Oscar got a ticket.

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Illegal parking. $50.00 fine. Damn, how many quarters would it take to feed the meters?

Matt Smith of Chicago’s Streets and Sanitation Department told the Tribune they could have towed the big weiner.  "We have access to tow trucks that could have handled a Polish sausage, not just a hot dog." Ah, but would they tow an Italian Beef sandwich?

Thanks to the Tribune’s Charlie Meyerson for the lead, and thanks to Jamie Brockett for the joke. Photograph copyright 2007 Chicago Tribune, All Rights Reserved. With mustard and onions. The author is about to jump on an airplane and fly to Chicago for one of those fantastic Italian Beef sandwichs, and, oh, some sort of convention.

 

Green Arrow Meets Voltron?

  • Uncategorized
  • August 10, 2007

voltron13-3092458Ha! Make you look!

Mark Gordon, the man who’s making the Green Arrow and Masters of the Universe movies, is also hard at work bringing Voltron to the big screen. Gordon’s the exec behind such stuff as Grey’s Anatomy, Saving Private Ryan, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  Fox’s New Regency hopes to squeeze a new franchise out of the deal. Justin Marks (Fast Forward, The Unbroken) is writing.

Hmmmm. Do you think Transformers‘ success had anything to do with it? Two more Transformers movies are in the works.

D2DVD REVIEW: The Film Crew

 

51yyhys0wyl-_aa240_-9001373Okay, I admit it. I’m still a fan of [[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]], the long-running teevee series that featured four robots and a loser riffing on a couple hundred B-flicks… if you’re feeling particularly generous about that “B” part. Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy were among the show’s writers and producers. They were also performers – Corbett with the eighth season, Murphy with second season. Nelson, who was head writer from the start, played odd parts for the first four seasons and took over the lead when creator Joel Hodgson left the show at the beginning of season five. The show ran from 1988 through 1999 and begat a feature film.

And I miss it a lot. Particularly after a presidential press conference.

So it was with missed emotions that I popped the first D2DVD by The Film Crew, [[[Hollywood After Dark]]], into my machine. This can’t possibly be as cool as Mystery Science Theater 3000, I thought. And I was only barely right. Nelson, Corbett and Murphy did what they do best: use a contrived reason to sit in a darkened theater and make jokes about a really horrible movie… but without the trademarked silhouette.

If the phrase “sexy Rue McClanahan” sounds like an oxymoron, Hollywood After Dark certainly provides the proof. It is perfectly horrible; it was made for Nelson, Corbett and Murphy to eviscerate. They were fully up to the task, and since the three were also the voices of the featured riffers in MST3K’s last three seasons, if you close your eyes it seems a lot like the original. They only have about half the number of writers, so the material isn’t quite as sharp.

The presentation was bisected by one studio bit, and here’s where I’m having a hard time shaking off MST3K. The ‘Bots had wonderfully wacky and occasionally evil personalities; the Film Crew enjoys its work and is perfectly fine with their environs. No tension, at least not in this first offering.

Shout! will be releasing three more Film Crew D2DVDs this year, and I suspect they’re already looking at their orders and deciding if there will be more. I have great confidence in the Film Crew, and Hollywood After Dark was a good if not great first offering. They will settle comfortably in their new roles.

I recommend this to my fellow MSTies. Yeah, there’s no ‘Bots. Deal with it.

Giant Lego Man: Threat or Menace?

  • News
  • August 10, 2007

 

 

 lego-7918767Baffling News Story of the Day: Dutch children discover and befriend a giant Lego man in the sea. AOL claims that he’s “smiling,” but I’m more familiar with the standard Lego faces than they are – that, my friend, is a smirk, which means this story is not yet done. (Hey, I just had a thought — any chance that this guy is the monster from the secret "Cloverfield" movie?)

Comics Reporter reaches way back to review 1967’s Marvel Collector’s Item Classics #13.

Neil Gaiman talks to NPR about Stardust (you’ll have to listen to it, not read it).

Comics Alliance interviews Eddie Campbell.

Sequential Tart interviews Gail Simone about her plans for Wonder Woman.

USA Today has a graphic novel roundup.

The Ephemerist thinks that Garfield is the new Nancy. When I see Jim Davis drawing three lasagna pans in the background, then I’ll worry.

Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog reviews Nick Abadzis’s graphic novel Laika. (Which I’ve just read; look for a review here in a few days, Gawd willing and the creek don’t rise.)

Comics Should Be Good’s latest Reason to Love Comics: Fin Fang Foom, baby!

Ralph’s Comic Corner of Ventura, CA was recently robbed. But it’s not as bad as it would have been – the robbers “walked by actual cash money to steal Spawn and Witchblade.”

Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing thinks Brian Talbot’s Alice in Sunderland is the “single weirdest graphic novel [he’s] ever enjoyed.” I smell a pull-quote for the second edition!

Dana of Comic Fodder reviews her usual weekly batch of Marvel comics. (more…)

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MICHAEL DAVIS: You’ll never work in this town again

  • News
  • August 10, 2007
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What you see posted above instead of my picture is an actual Walt Disney Company rejection letter from 1938. When I found this on line I freaked the heck out. I mean look at it! It says, in affect, “Look here, bitch you can’t work here because you’re a girl!”

Before you start marching on Disney, remember this was a vastly different time in America. It’s fair to say that me writing that I dated white women would have been just cause for me to fear for my life in 1938 in some parts of America. We have sure come a long way!

Or… (Place ominous music here) have we?

There are still people in this country who think that women and other minorities are not equal.

It’s the year 2007 and the ERA has not been pasted. The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, is still not part of the U.S. Constitution.

What is up with that?

It’s the year 2007 and there are only 35 states that say that women are equal. So how far have we come?  I know from experience that there still exists racism in this country. Statistics prove that sexism still exists. The “glass ceiling” is a frequent topic for documentaries and ‘special reports’ on news programs.

This Disney letter got me wondering if sexism and racism are real factors in the entertainment world. I have been on hundreds of TV pitches and never felt it was a factor. I, like a lot of black people have a sort of radar sense when it comes to discrimination.

No, I am not the sort of person (but I do know black people like this) who blame everything on being black. Have you heard any of these? They did not hire me because I’m Black. They won’t rent to me because I’m Black. They think I’m darker than them because I’m Black.

Now replace “black” with “woman” and tell me have you heard these? They did not hire me because I’m a woman. They won’t promote me because I’m a woman. They think I’m female because I’m a woman.

I used to think that some deals of mine were killed because I was black. I realized that it was not because I was black, it was because some people in positions of power did not like me.

 

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WW-CHICAGO: The Big ComicMix Broadcast Hits Chicago!

drew-and-mike-5512873The ComicMix staff has landed at Wizard World Chicago just in time for tonite’s exclusive Preview Party. But even before the doors open, Wizard World Director of Communications Drew Seldin (on the left; I’m the other guy) gives a sneak peek of the weekend. Plus The Big ComicMix Broadcast showcases a new "relationship comic" that you can see on line right now, and gives you a quick trip back to when a west coast band made noise by covering The Monkees!

Come On To The Con – all you have to do is PRESS THE BUTTON!

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