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The Office MumboJumbo

  • News
  • June 22, 2007

Years ago, video games were for playing in the living room or den, on the couch.  Then there were hand-held models you can take outside, or into your bedroom, or on the subway.  The next step was internet games you could play at work when your boss wasn’t watching.

Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, there’s The Office video game for PCs.  Based on the NBC series starring Steve Carrell, Rainn Wilson, cutie John Krasinski and too many hilarious people to list, the game, from a company called  MumboJumbo, is set to be in stores this fall.  You can buy it in stores or online.  Next year, the company plans to create new games based on the show for Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable.  Beyond that, there’s games for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network — the sky’s the limit.

The Office cast members will appear in the game as bobble-heads.

MICHAEL DAVIS: Fade To Black

  • News
  • June 22, 2007

michael-davis100-3637577I fully realized that the article I wrote last week was at some times petty and juvenile. I was furious and I forgot that the best way to make a point is a well thought out lucid argument. At one time I may have suggested some people in the Genarlow Wilson case were racist and because of that I wrote that “white women love me.” This was simply not right.

I was wrong and I apologize. In my attempt to strike a nerve with the people in the case I lashed out but I was totally wrong to say that. I was wrong and I hope that those people I lashed out at will forgive me.

The fact of the matter is white women don’t love me…they REALLY love me!

Dudes! I can’t keep them off of me! I’m thinking of changing my name to Mandingo (they love that) and seeing if there’s any money in this!

Yeah, I’m still a wee bit bitter over the whole Genarlow Wilson and Paris Hilton thing. To all my friends’ black and white, all jokes aside I’m just trying to get those morons in Georgia to lose some sleep at night. That way they can share in a little of what Genarlow Wilson is enduring.

I was going to write this particular column last week but I got caught up in the Genarlow Wilson and Paris Hilton debacle so here it is a week later and I hope it’s still relevant.

By now we have all seen or heard about The Sopranos series ending show. The vast majority of the world hated that ending. Me? I thought it was a cop-out UNLESS they are planning a movie. Then I get it. If they are not planning a movie then HBO should change its name to simply B.O., because that ending stunk.

HBO is a funny little network. No one doubts that they do GREAT TV. In fact The Sopranos would not (could not) have been done on any other network. If the show were picked up by ABC then Tony Soprano would have been played by Tony Danza or some such actor. It was The Sopranos that really lit the fire under the rest of the TV world. I remember NBC did a Soprano rip. It was called Kingpin. Everybody in that show looked like supermodels. Even the hit men were wearing Hugo Boss suits. That show went bye bye faster than Barry Allen. Why? Because as I have said a million times: Americans are not the idiots some TV executives think.

Rather or not you like the ending or not it sure did make an impact, this morning I watched a Hillary Clinton parody of the ending on the Today show.

Wait a moment.

Did I just say that Hillary Clinton, the front-runner in the race for President did a Sopranos parody? Love or hate the ending (or love or hate Hillary) you have to respect the power of a television program that can do that. As I said in my very first column my readers would always know where I stand so let me be clear: I hated the ending but I love Hillary. Why do I love Hillary? Well if we elect her we get Bill as a bonus! Why did I hate the Sopranos ending? Because unless there is going to be a Sopranos movie then that was not an ending. It was a big slap in the face of America by a great producer who wants to be considered an artist.

For the most part television is not an art form. It is an entertainment medium. Yes there is great TV and yes there can be some shows, movies etc. that can be considered artistic but TV is not an art form.

Art by definition is an individual who creates something for no other reason except to see it created. They do it because they have a desire to share their vision with the world. Anytime someone pays you to create a product where the sole purpose is to garner ratings, that is not an art. (more…)

Harry Potter Spoilers Online

  • News
  • June 21, 2007

BBC News is reporting that a "hacker" calling himself Gabriel has posted the ending of the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, on his website.  Thoughtfully, the BBC does not provide a link.

The book is due in stores on July 21.  Author J. K. Rowling has said that two characters will die in the book.  She also said, "There will always be sad individuals who get their kicks from ruining other people’s fun."  She said she hoped,that her readers would "embark on the last adventure they will share with [Harry] without knowing where they are they going."

As an old hippie and a knitter, I’d agree that it’s the journey, not the destination, that’s most important.

More Heroes for Second Season

  • Uncategorized
  • June 21, 2007

The casting announcements for the second season of Heroes have been flowing of late, with the  cast set to start shooting next week.

The biggest name to join is David Anders, best known as the chaerming villain, Sark, on Alias.  He will play, surprisingly, Takezo Kensei, Hiro Nakamura’s childhood idol.  As viewers recall, Hiro now possesses Kensei’s sword.

 

Nick D’Agosto has been cast as Clarie’s boyfriend and will also have undisclosed super-powers.  D’Agosto has been largely seen in television guest roles from House to ER.  She is expected to return to her cheerleading habit when she winds up in California.  She will be dealing with Lyndsy Fonseca (Big Love) and Dianna Agron (Veronica Mars) as fellow cheerleaders, one bitchy, one sweet.

Eriko Tamura, a pop star and actress in Japan, will be playing a Japanese princess.  She has ten albums and has become quite the idol.

Barry Shabaka Henley (The Horseman) will be a New York police detective named Fuller with Holt McCallany (Vantage Point) as leader of an Irish street gang.

Bugs Bunny Artist Armstrong Dies

  • Uncategorized
  • June 21, 2007

According to today’s Los Angeles Times, noted Bugs Bunny cartoonist Roger Armstrong died of a heart attack two weeks ago at the age of 89. Among Armstrong’s other credits included Donald Duck, Woody Woodpecker, Scooby Doo, the Pink Panther, the Beagle Boys,The Flintstones, Little Lulu, Scamp and other features published by Dell and Gold Key Comics. He also drew the Bugs Bunny newspaper comic strip from 1942 to 1944 as well as for a time in the 1950s.

Writer / historian Mark Evanier told the TImes "He was a pioneer of doing funny animal comic books, taking an animated property from the screen and adapting it to the comic book page." Mark worked with Armstrong on both The Flintstones and Super Goof comic books in the 1970s. "He was in those books for decades doing this wonderful work and kind of setting the bar for the other artists who drew for those comics."

Armstrong was also a past president of the National Watercolor Society and served as director of the Laguna Art Museum from 1963 to 1967.

LICENSING SHOW Day 3: Cute Stuff

  • News
  • June 21, 2007

five_tiger_m-7170002On its last day, the Licensing Show at New York City’s Javitz Center was just as crowded, just as large, and just as overwhelming as it was on Day One.  This time, however, I knew where I was going and what I wanted to see.

And I wanted to see cute!  I’m female, damnit, and I wanted to see soft and wide-eyed and colorful.  I wanted Katz Fun!  The three luckiest animals in the world, designed to fit together to be even more lucky! 

Or, possibly, I wanted heroes.  Not dark, dour, gloomy heroes, but bright heroes.  Sunny heroes.  Perhaps what I wanted was Sunny Hero: Operation Sun God.

Both of these, were from Taiwan.  And both were adorable.

But wait!  There’s more! (more…)

Rosario Talks and Fat Momma Squawks

  • Uncategorized
  • June 21, 2007

It’s the first full day of summer and we heat things up with our middle-of-the week Broadcast, starting with News on some new cartoons, anime and games, a talk with Fat Momma from Stan Lee’s Who Wants To Be A Super-Hero, the first part of our visit with Hollywood Fan Girl Rosario Dawson, and a trip back to when Bond was Steele.

Rosario was impressed the way you PRESSED THE BUTTON last time – do it again!

iron-man-8378199

LICENSING SHOW Day 2: Plenty o’ Pix

  • News
  • June 21, 2007

iron-man-8378199A pretty big outcome for the second day of the 2007 Licensing Show. Lots of movie pushes, of course with this being one of the biggest franchise summers in film history. Warner Bros was there in the same form as last year, showing off some of the new cars from their new flicks. We got the first peak at the The Dark Knight’s brand new BatPod (and no, you can’t play music on it, its just a cooler name than Bat-Cycle) also we got an up-close look at the new Mach 5 from next summer’s Speed Racer.

flash-gordon-9464980Also in the movie department, we got a bit of a tease over at Marvel’s booth for both The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man slated to come out next summer as well. Nothing too exciting over there, but the New Line booth was surprisingly pretty popular. To promote next year’s Golden Compass, there was a nine-foot armored bear, and despite popular belief, not only do I like girls, but I am also really looking forward to this film. Based of the series of His Dark Materials books by Phillip Pullman, this is the first of the series, and looks to be even better than last year’s underachiever in The Chronicles of Narnia.

dark-knight1-4523879They also were promoting a film that I have heard absolutely no buzz about up until today entitled Inkheart starring Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, and Helen Mirren, based on the book by Carnelia Funke of the same title.

hulk-7797584 The BBC booth was also there promoting the hell out of Doctor Who, which I had absolutely no qualms with. This big push was due to the American release of series three to the Sci-Fi Network next month. Also coming to Sci-Fi in August, and came to me as a huge surprise was a remake of Flash Gordon. Now before I dusted off my Queen soundtrack and started to dance, I did a little bit of research, and the creative team consists of some of the minds that brought us Relic Hunter, Beastmaster, Young Blades, Andromeda, and oh, yes: Painkiller Jane. So before we all get excited and break out the champagne, I’d bet on this show being off the air before the bottle runs dry.

dwho-1187444Finally, and by far my favorite part of today’s show was the news about Xip3, a new jacket company buying the rights to Transformers to release a “Transforming Jacket” that will be released with the DVD in November. I got to see first hand how this works, and it’s pretty cool. The jacket is black with silver accents, and can “transform” from a sports jacket to a backpack to a pillow in seconds. The unisex jackets will all be numbered and in sizes extra small to extra large. You can reserve your copy starting in July over at the Xip3 website.

Overall, a great show and I can’t wait to hear what wonderful things await for the ComicMix crew for day three!

JOHN OSTRANDER: Backing Into The Future

  • News
  • June 21, 2007

ostrander100-2156678The new Suicide Squad miniseries got announced this last weekend and noted by many, including here on ComicMix. The series was always a cross between Mission: Impossible and The Dirty Dozen and will be again. I’ve always tried to give it a “real world” feel, even going back to its origin. And sometimes the “real world” pulls a fast one.

When I proposed the Squad, there was some concern that the premise – that the U.S. government would hire bad guys to undertake missions considered to be “in the national interest” but needed deniability – seemed a little “out there.” In between the time that the proposal was accepted and we got our first issue out, Irangate broke – where the government was using bad guys etc etc – and made us look like pikers. It looked like we were cashing in on the story rather than inventing an edgy and daring scenario.

That continued through the Squad’s run. I would read the papers and try to extrapolate events from them, concoct possible and likely scenarios and try to fit the Squad around them, and the real world would get there around the same time the issue came out. I was successful enough at one point that a friend contacted me one January wanting to know where I was setting the Squad that summer. She was preparing her summer vacation plans and wherever I was sending the Squad she wanted to avoid.

In truth, I’m not much of a seer. I simply apply what I know from writing plots – formulating a sequence of events that would lead to a given event/moment and then extrapolating the most feasible series of events that might follow from said event. I apply this method to what I see in the world. Very useful in plotting or dealing with characters; a little scarier when dealing with real-life situations.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I did it in a column concerning the sudden death of bees. Others, such as Al Gore, are doing an admirably scary job looking at climate change (a.k.a. global warming). I remember once when I was teaching a writing class at the Joe Kubert School – yes, I was teaching writing to artists – I gave an assignment on scanning the future. We started from a given factoid: oil is not a renewable resource. At some point we will cross the line where we will have taken more oil out of the ground than there is left in it. Some speculate we either already have or will within the next ten years. At that point, oil has to start becoming a scarcer commodity. Given our current rate of consumption, there are some who think the oil will give out around 2030.

We started to explore what that would mean. Not just higher costs for driving your car or heating your home but what the impact would be in other areas. For example, as the cost of transporting goods goes up so does the cost of bringing in food outside the local area. Everything then costs more from the clothes you wear to the food you eat.

Plastics are made from petroleum and as petroleum becomes scarcer, the cost of plastics goes up. Think of everything – EVERYTHING – you use that depends on plastic use – on CHEAP plastic use. The cost, of course, gets passed on to the consumer. That’s a given.

With all this, I asked them to contemplate what happens geopolitically. As oil becomes scarcer and control of it literally dictates what happens to a country’s economy, who will do what in order to control access to the oil? I don’t mean just this country; there are up and coming players as well. Hungry players. (more…)

Deathwatch: Funky?

  • Uncategorized
  • June 20, 2007

funky_winkerbean-3224241

The trade publication Editor & Publisher reports the Lisa Moore character in Funky Winkerbean will die this October, siting an article in the Cleveland Free Times. Cartoonist/creator Tom Batiuk has shown Lisa dealing with a worsening case of breast cancer over the past month; her treatment was delayed due to a mix-up at the lab. Lisa will undergo another round of chemotherapy before stopping. She will struggle with how to tell her  daughter about her situation, and testify before Congress for more cancer-research funding.

No stranger to controversy, in the past Batiuk has addressed such concerns as suicide, guns in the classroom, and teen-dating abuse. After this storyline, Batiuk  will again age his castmembers by a decade, repeating a concept he employed in the early 1990s. No Nancying around for Funky and friends.

One of the main characters in Funky Winkerbean is the owner of a comic shop and frequently wears a Batman t-shirt. Cartoonist John Byrne has been known to help out on the feature.

Artwork copyright 2007 Batom, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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