The Agony Column interviews Austin Grossman, author of Soon I Will Be Invincible.
Wired talks to Kim Stanley Robinson about the future of the planet. [via Bruce Sterling]
Brooklyn Frank interviews Jeff Somers, author of The Electric Church. [via the author]
SciFi Wire talks to Jay Lake about the clockwork solar system of his new novel, Mainspring.
SFF World interviews Gail Z. Martin, author of The Summoner.
Some call it the "luckiest day of the year," but to us it’s just another day soaking in the warm glow of Pop Culture! The Big ComicMix Weekend Broadcast goes a little old skool with news on new Pokemon and the new Magic cards, a tip on a new film from the Stargate folks, Homer In The Air plus a talk with one of the best comic craftsmen of the last four decades (guess who?) … and the story of a guy who dropped this clothes on Broadway and then went on to have a hit song!
Press The Button, and if a bunch of "7s" turn up on your screen, call a priest!
Wordless comics are usually considered “kids stuff,” but not in this case. I hope inattentive parents aren’t buying Fox Bunny Funny for their little darlings, since that might lead to a lot of nightmares and uneasy questions. But, for those of us who can handle explicit Fox-on-Bunny violence, Fox Bunny Funny is worth seeking out.
As I said, it’s a wordless anthropomorphic comic, set in a world much like our own populated by Foxes (who hunt, eat, and torment Bunnies) and Bunnies (who hide and try to survive). Our nameless hero starts off as a young Fox with odd urges – he doesn’t want to kill Bunnies, he wants to be one of them. And this causes all sorts of trouble for him.
The story is told in three chapters, presumably “Fox,” “Bunny,” and “Funny.” (They’re titled with little icons: a fox, a bunny, and a mixture of the two.) I’m not entirely sure what “Funny” has to do with anything – this isn’t humorous in any conventional sense – so I think it must be a reference to “funny animals.” Anyone who buys this looking for anthropomorphic humor will be very disappointed.
Interzone #211, a special Michael Moorock issue, will be published in a week, so TTA Press has posted its table of contents. Besides a new Moorcock story and novel excerpt, there are stories from Carlos Hernandez, Aliette de Bodard, and Grace Dugan, among other things.
Ansible has put out its 240th issue, full of the usual stuff – quotes that make people look bad, amusing anecdotes, dates, and so forth.
John Joseph Adams’s article about writing workshops, “Basic Training for Writers,” from the SFWA Bulletin, has been posted on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website as a PDF.
Okay, technically Family Guy is a Sunday night cartoon rather than a Saturday morning one; let’s just go with it.
As you might imagine, Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy did not spring forth fully formed from the pen like Bosko The Clown did, there were earlier versions. Here we have Seth introducing a 1995 early presentation reel of a proto-Griffin that he developed while he was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, and yes, we have to warn you that it’s probably Not Safe For Work:
Every weekend, when I walk by the newsstands, I see cover stories in gossip magazines about Brad and Angelina, Jennifer, Reese, Lindsay, Britney and others. Although I only read these magazines at the hairdressers, I am fascinated by the lifestyles of people I will likely never meet. On Sunday, I enjoy the Real Estate section of The New York Times, looking at pictures of homes that can cost tens of millions of dollars.
And then, there are my favorite comics.
Batman has always been one of my favorite characters, at least in part because of Bruce Wayne. I am moved by the image of that little boy, watching his mother’s pearls scatter on the street as his parents are murdered. As a child, I was afraid the same thing could happen to my parents. As a parent, I wanted to spare my child from that tragedy.
(To his credit, my son wanted to do the right thing. “Don’t worry,” he assured me when he was five years old. “If you’re ever gunned down by criminals, I promise to avenge your death.”)
Most of the people who have written Batman over the years have concentrated on the Caped Crusader and his underground Bat Cave, not the billionaire playboy who lives in the manor above. Most of the more recent writers believe that Bruce Wayne is the disguise, that the little, traumatized boy grew up to be Batman, not Wayne.
That premise allows for many interesting stories, and I understand that it’s more fun to play with the driven, rage-filled Batman, the character with the high-tech equipment and the regimen of martial arts training. A person who fights bad guys is more likely to work in stories that require a beginning, a middle and an end than a single man rattling around in a mansion.
Except …
Forbidden Planet International previews the very cool-looking new entry in the Penguin Modern Classics line, A Science Fiction Omnibus, edited by Brian Aldiss.
Today’s Harry Potter hoopla: The New York Times reports on Harry-themed conferences, parties and festivals taking place this summer.
Also working the HP beat: The Washington Post has an article about avoiding spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with lots of anecdotes about people deliberately spoiling the last book. It’s hard out there for a muggle…
Del Rey’s latest e-mail newsletter announces a giveaway – they want to send thirty advance copies of Terry Brooks’s new novel, The Elves of Cintra, to ordinary readers for their early review. You can get full details at that link, or sign up for the newsletter yourself. [via Fantasy Book Critic]
Since the name of the site is ComicMix, the comics reviews come first. After the break, some crunchy links to SF/Fantasy book reviews, including one for Mike Carey’s novel The Devil You Know.
And, speaking of Carey, here’s a review from Blogcritics for Re-Gifters, by Mike Carey and Sonny Liew.
Blogcritics also reviews Outsiders: The Good Fight by Judd Winick, Matthew Clark, and Art Thibert.
Blogcritics also also reviews Eric Wright’s My Dead Girlfriend, Volume One.
Dana Stevenson (of Comic Fodder) reviews this week’s Marvel Comics.
Well, as good as the Transformers flick was, there still seems to be even more buzz about one of the trailers that preceded it. The only things we, the public, know are that it opens 1-18-08, J.J. Abrams is attached through his production company, Bad Robot, and it’s shot from ground level as a giant monster/robot/thing criticizes some of New York’s statues. What we, the Internet savvy folk, know is that the working title of the film is Cloverfield, and that’s about it.
If you haven’t gone to see Transformers yet and have no clue what I’m talking about, check out the really bad bootleg of it below. With the hype that this is getting, along with the already loyal Lost fans, this project is shaping up to be what Godzilla and The Blair Witch Project should have been.
On another interesting note, a dedicated fan decided to document how he analyzed not only the trailer but the image found on the Cloverfield website. Check it out, courtesy of YouTube.
Also, fitting in with the Dark Knight viral marketing tool, two sites have been put up that are attached to the film. Whether or not the allude to anything that would give us some insight is questionable. The first site is 1-18-08.com and as of right now, we have a screen cap of some possible future victims, but bookmark this bad boy, because I’m sure there will be more content up there soon.
And finally, Paramount secretly released EthanHaasWasRight.com, which is an interesting Java Puzzle that will give you lots of possible info on the plot if you complete it. The further you get, the more videos you unlock in which frightened people speak of "Things Changing on August 1."
For all of the news as it comes on next January’s mysterious and exciting project, keep checking us here at ComicMix.
According to this item at Howard Cruse’s blog, a group called the Library Patrons of Texas has made a list of every dirty word, racial slur and suggestive image in his award-winning graphic novel, Stuck Rubber Baby. The group’s purpose is is to encourage "local control of taxpayer-funded libraries and responsible age-appropriate selection, classification and access policies sensitive to local community standards and values."
In a spirit of cooperativeness, Howie has offered to re-do his book to suit Texan tastes. Here’s one example:
Artwork copyright Howard Cruse. All Rights Reserved. Thanks, Howard! Keep fighting the good fight!
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
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