I’’m spoiled already. Seven weeks into this column, and I yawn when I see a DVD with “only” one audio commentary. It wasn’’t even seven weeks when I succumbed to the “Critic’s Disease,”– judging each new entertainment against the one I had seen the day, week, month, or year before.

For the most part, the illness’ symptoms aren’’t as egregious for DVDs as they are for films, since it’’s likely most people see more DVDs than go to the movies, and therefore have touches of the malady themselves. Besides, as I pointed out before, expectations are far lower for films seen on TV than they are in the cinemas.

Even so, some worthy discs (or double discs) can slip through the cracks while I’’m la-di-dahing. Such is the case for Fantastic Four Extended Edition I first mentioned a column or two back. Don’’t get me wrong: the actual film, despite the twenty minutes of reinstated footage, still isn’’t as good as it could or should have been. But in the weeks since reviewing it, my memory keeps going back to the special features.

So now I feel I could have been a bit more adamant about the edition’s charms, especially with this site’s readers. Maybe I should have mentioned that the extras come in two categories: the film, and the comic book. And it is in this latter category where the glory of this version truly lies. There are new, lovingly created docs –each more than an hour long – on the history of the comic from the 1960’s until today, and on co-creator/artist supreme Jack Kirby.

Each features the cream of the comic world’s crop (Stan Lee, Jim Lee, George Perez, Marv Wolfman, Walt Simonson, Len Wein, Alex Ross, and many others) waxing enthusiastically about their writing and artistic contribution to the series (save for John Byrne, whose absence is accusatory, though his input is lauded) as well as the man who inspired them. Remember, grasshoppers, that the climatic locale for the first season of Heroes was called Kirby Plaza for a reason. The docs do a nifty, pleasing job of balancing art images with talking heads, and the overall effect is a warm and fuzzy feeling for a film that wasn’t that rousing to begin with.

The first Fantastic Four film should be so lucky as to be remembered with the same fondness as it’s “fantastic” predecessor, Fantastic Voyage. In addition to sharing an adjective (or is that an adverb?), 20th Century Fox has released special editions of their respective DVDs at the same time. But Voyage, incongruously, is part of Fox’’s “Cinema Classics Collection.” (more…)

I thought it would be pretty darn polite if we created a weekly spot here at ComicMix where we could post the links and contacts for some of the things we cover during the week in our trice-weekly Big ComicMix Broadcasts. Let’s jump right on what went down over the last few days:

We covered a few more comics you might not be aware of in our Summer Reading feature – including The Black Coat, Ben Lichius’ adventure strip about America’s First Super Patriot. You can see more & even order issues here.  For something completely different, there is In His Likeness, which is primarily seen on the web here but creator James Hatton has a collection of the first 100 strips in a trade you can order.

In the event your local comic shop doesn’t carry Dave Nestler’s Blonde & Gagged, you can see it here, plus much more of Dave’s work and it is a good place to follow progress of the proposed B&G film.

It was great taking with all three creative partners in 12 Gauge Comics’ Occult Crimes Task Force. The Trade pb of the first series is out in stores now, but you can see a lot more on the 12 Gauge Website here and even get a signed copy of the first issue, neatly scribbled on by Dave Atchison, Tony Shasteen and Ms. Rosario Dawson as well!

Finally, if you want to get ready to grab that Anita Blake black & white variant, the line begins here, but the sale starts on July 13th.

Next week, we gear up (no pun intended) for Transformers fever (we’ll be interviewing star Mark Ryan at the San Diego ComicCon), plus more summer reading and another Secrets Behind The Comics.

Please send us your thoughts and comments, Keep your ears clean and we will see you on Tuesday!

Likeness is copyright James Hatton. All Rights Reserved. OCT is copyright 12 Gauge Comics, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Thirty years ago today, Marvel released the debut of Marvel Comics Super Special #1 featuring Kiss, where they squared off against (who else?) Mephisto and Dr. Doom. The issue was printed with ink that had blood added from each of the band members, a feat not surpassed until Mark Gruenwald’s ashes were mixed in with the trade paperback of Squadron Supreme.

Kiss would later star in a second Super Special, a 31 issue run of Kiss: Psycho Circus with Image in the 90’s, guest star in Howard The Duck, and made an announcement back in February of the creation of the Kiss Comics Group.

Gene Simmons is a huge comic book fan, reportedly taking the heavy metal salute of index and pinky fingers extended (pictured below) straight from Doctor Strange, and publishing some of his own titles with the Simmons Comics Group, such as Gene Simmons’s House of Horrors, which will be out in July from IDW.

And Simmons noted in his autobiography that the character he most identifies with is Jon Sable. Boy, is he going to be happy soon…