To begin, the funeral arrangements from Mike’s brother Matt, reprinted in its entirety:

First, let me thank everyone who has expressed their condolences online and over the phone. We have been, frankly, overwhelmed by all the good will from all over the world. I don’t think our parents fully understood (nor did Mike) just how much he was loved and admired. To get us through this, my wife and I have spent a couple of sleepless nights reading the postings here and at Newsarama (thank you, Matt Brady) and the John Byrne Forum and it’s helped a great deal. Most touching of all was Cully Hamner’s heartfelt eulogy at Newsarama. Thank you so much, Cully. You are a beautiful man.

Now to the hard part. Mike will have two funeral services.

First, there will be a public viewing this Friday (August 17th) from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Hall-Wynne Funeral Service at 1113 West Main Street in Durham, NC, followed by a chapel service at 2:00. This will be open to any of Mike’s friends and colleagues who’d like to attend. Please come prepared to share a Mike story. I plan on putting you on the spot. It would really help our Mom and Dad through this.

Second, at a time to be determined, there will be a private service for Mike’s family in Lynchburg, where we grew up.

As mentioned before, in lieu of flowers, if you’d like please send donations to the A.S.P.C.A. (aspca.org) or to the Hero Initiative (heroinitiative.org). I had previously mentioned the CBLDF but, having time to think about it, I realized that the Hero Initiative was more Mike’s style. Those wishing to contribute to the CBLDF anyway, please feel free as it’s a worthwhile cause as well.

Finally, some of you have expressed concern over what would become of Mike’s little buddy and constant companion, his cat Charlie. Well, breathe easy. Charlie is coming to live with us in Richmond with our other cat Toonces. I’m not sure how Toonces is going to take to living with the little dynamo that is Charlie, but family is family. Charlie is doing well but obviously misses Mike. He’s been sleeping on Mike’s bed and under his drawing table but he’s active and friendly.

Take care, everyone and, on behalf of our parents, my wife and me, thanks for everything. –Matt (more…)

In the back of Wizard World’s Chicago convention program was a full page ad featuring Paul Jenkins. It read:

This man is here to take your money! He is Paul Jenkins. Some call him a comic writer. You will call him "master." He is shooting pool at the Hero Initiative booth, #140. You can challenge him for $30, and possibly win fabulous prizes. But you will not win fabulous prizes. Because Paul will beat you. No, "beat" is not the correct word. He will destroy you, humiliate you, and debase you. He will leave you a broken shell of a man, woman, or whatever vaguely walking-erect mammal you purport to be. Paul Jenkins owns you. You just don’t know it yet.

How could I resist that? My ComicMix crew got their camera ready and I paid my $30. (more…)

It’’s autumn.

Yes, I know you look out the window, check the weather, glance at the calendar. It’’s still summer out there. But for the fine folk who work the service industries, it’s already fall, and their stores, movie theaters, and DVD shelves reflect that “fact” – filling ever fuller of loss leaders and also-rans.

Thankfully, this pre-school/pre-new TV season/pre-Halloween period allows at least this columnist to ruminate on the similarities and differences between how diverse countries and cultures see this era. For example, Vacancy –Screen Gems’ attempt to create a top shelf slasher film – oops, I mean “grade A torture porn” — which, like “military intelligence,” is a contradiction in terms.

Everybody knows (or should) that slasher films can be enjoyed en masse –with crowds screaming and jumping in unison, while torture porn is best appreciated in the privacy of the home. Because, really, there’s no surprises or shocks in torture porn, just gross-outs. And, while it can be fun to go “ewwwww” in unison, many t.p.’s don’’t even have that kind of sadistic imagination involved.

So, hedging their bets, Screen Gems found a suitable prozacritic* quote: “It’’s Psycho meets Saw,” and went from there with the DVD release of Vacancy — the Luke Wilson/Kate Beckinsale suspense vehicle that borrows Norman Bates’’ motel, the Two Thousand Maniacs’ town, the Snuff blueprint, and mashed them all together under the watchful eye of the unfortunately named Hungarian director Nimrod Antal.

There are really two kinds of t.p. flicks: the murder movie and the conflict film. In my book, For One Week Only: The World of Exploitation Films, I explained the difference between scripts that debased their characters and the ones that degraded them. The conflict film (Scream, Saw, etc.) degrades the characters with repeated abuses, but then the antagonists learn and fight back (sometimes successfully, sometimes not). The murder movie (Wolf Creek, Friday the 13th sequels, et al) debases their characters – that is, robs them of even their basest humanity to render them as mere victims ripe for the slaughter which comes like clockwork every seven minutes.

Vacancy, thankfully, is a conflict film, and not a terrible one. The disc’s special features start with an extra that is unheralded on the packaging: an alternate opening which immediately clues you to where the filmmakers’ hearts were. Because, even in a conflict film, an audience has two basic choices: hope they live or hope they don’t. You can enjoy their torment and/or enjoy their fight. The alternate opening starts at the end of the story, cluing you in that the bad guys didn’t “get away with it” but leaving the pretty protagonists’ fates as yet unknown.

The real fun starts with the “making of” featurette, in which handsome, pretty, accomplished, slick, professional Hollywood A-listers attempt to rationalize, with straight faces, why they are catering to the nasty niche. They don’t succeed, but, personally, I found their squirming far more entertaining than the actual film. I shrieked, I jumped, I “ewwwwww”ed. (more…)