The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Shazam movie writer named

  • Uncategorized
  • March 11, 2007

captainmarvel-4658623According to the Hollywood Reporter, John August has been chosen to write the screenplay for New Line Cinema’s adaptation of the DC comic Shazam!, currently enjoying a resurgence thanks to the writing and art of Bone creator Jeff Smith.  August has served as screenwriter for a number of Tim Burton’s recent movies, including Big Fish, Corpse Bride and Charlie the Chocolate Factory.

But it wasn’t Smith to whom August turned for continuity advice. Instead he had a session with Geoff Johns for "idiot checking" to keep it true to the characters that readers expect.  "I think we’re going to be able to be really faithful to the mythology and yet make it completely transparent for people who have no idea who the character is," August said, adding, "It’s a unique opportunity to do a comic book movie where the character in it actually read comic books."

The will be produced by Michael Ewing and Peter Segal; Segal is also set to direct.  Let the casting call speculations begin!

ComicMix Week 4, 4 U

  • News
  • March 11, 2007

Have you sprung forward this morning?  Feel like you’ve missed an hour or so?  Well, come spend another one with us catching up on the weekly columns you may have missed!  Here they are all in one place for your convenience:

Yeah, John and I switched days this week, for reasons which you will discover when you read our respective columns.  And of course, Mellifluous Mike Raub is making history thrice weekly with his podcasts:

Lots of surprises in them thar audios!  And as a bonus for our first month online, here are our past roundups:

One other thing.  You may have noticed the site redesign starting, with the addition of more items per page and such.  Trust us, there’s much more to come!

DIY BSG

  • News
  • March 11, 2007

bsgvid-2957943Because Battlestar Galactica fans demanded it, and they didn’t even know it!  Also because hey, it provides the SciFi Channel with more airtime filler and they don’t have to work to get it.  In any case, the newest bit of viral interactive fun care of SciFi is the Battlestar Galactica Videomaker Toolkit, which allows viewers to insert sound, visual and music clips from the show in their own homemade four-minute masterpieces, which they can then upload to the site in a sort of contest where the winner will be shown during the airing of a future BSG episode. 

Maybe we’ll get to see a cool Starbuck resurrection scene, combined perhaps with a Stephen Colbert green screen kinda deal…

DC talks directly to you

DC Publisher and President and writer Paul Levitz gives ComicMix a major interview, Frank Miller’s 300 reviewed, Tim Sale’s Heroes work goes up for a charity auction… all this and, yes, Timeline and even more on ComicMix Podcast #12, available right here:

Let’s you and him fight!

  • News
  • March 10, 2007

garvspeanuts-9110561Cartoonist Barry Deutsch aka Ampersand reposts a lengthy analysis from his blog archives comparing the oeuvre, if you will (and if you won’t, I certainly won’t), of Charles Schultz’ Peanuts versus Jim Davis’ Garfield.

Deutsch subjectively crowns Peanuts the winner in every one of his self-defined categories of Originality, Humaneness, Emotional Life, Egalitarianism, Grace and Humor.  Fortunately, Lasagna is not one of his categories, or it wouldn’t be such a clean sweep.

Fandom Canada-style, eh?

  • News
  • March 10, 2007

wwd_photobanner-2165231Andy Mangels, curator of the online Wonder Woman Museum, writes to apologize for the belated heads-up about a Canadian TV programme called FANatical, which airs weekly on the TVtropolis channel. 

Seems this past week’s episode featured musings on Andy’s favorite character, featuring interviews with him and Anina Bennett (pictured at right at last year’s Wonder Woman Day charity event), as well as appearances by Terry Dodson, Anne Timmons, Matt Clark, Paul Guinan, Michael Eury and others.  As this episode aired last Tuesday with a rerun this morning at 9:30 AM Eastern. Does anyone have a YouTube excerpt they’d care to share?

Just another MoCCA Monday

  • News
  • March 10, 2007

luluberty-9615143Friends of Lulu has been a visible player in the comics world for about fifteen years now.  Like many organizations, it’s had its share of controversy.  It’s also helped give visibility and voice to a lot of talented writers and artists in an industry where, until very recently, one of the most frequently asked questions seemed to be "where are all the women comics creators?"

In the interest of full disclosure, I was very active in FoL for a number of years, and helped nurture some of its successful ventures dealing with women’s visibility like the Women Doing Comics list on the national website and the Women in Comics discussion series hosted by the New York chapter (see logo at right, created for the FoL/NY t-shirts by my best friend, the late Leah Adezio).  So I feel a bit like a mother hen when noting that the latter is still going strong, currently in association with the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in Manhattan’s SoHo district, which hosts what it calls their "MoCCA Mondays."

This coming Monday, March 12, MoCCA and FoL/NY present a panel called The Big Picture, as artist Marion Vitus moderates a discussion with a group of four diverse professionals — Del Rey Manga’s Trisha Narwani, NYPL Teen Central’s Melissa Jenvey, artist Christine Norrie, and Friends of Lulu cofounder Heidi McDonald — as they look ahead in the comic book world.  The program begins at 6:30 PM and is absolutely free.  Tell them the mother hen sent ya.

How to follow the thread

  • News
  • March 10, 2007

martha100-1028330It’s no coincidence that The Fates of Greek mythology are female. The sisters sit and spin, each thread the life of a mortal. One sister decides when a thread will start, another adjusts the tension and thickness, and the third cuts it at the end.

Women are frequently storytellers. Sit around a playground and listen to the moms chat, or go to a laundromat, or the communal dressing room at Loehman’s. You’ll hear epic tales of finding a bargain at the designer rack, or intrigue and scandal at the PTA. You’ll hear detailed comparisons of size and technique.

Men tell stories to each other, too, when women aren’t around. Or so I’m told.

Are men’s stories better than women’s? I doubt it. Are they different? Perhaps. Are they told differently? You bet!

In her insightful book You Just Don’t Understand, Deborah Tannen describes the different ways men and women use speech. In general (and Tannen goes into more detail than we have space about the range of individual exceptions), women use conversation to establish common ground; men use it to establish hierarchy. This would suggest that we tell our stories for different reasons. (more…)

600 bare thighs

  • News
  • March 9, 2007

300-2-200-9272090Starting off, I want to issue a warning to the readers out there who aren’t fans of scantily clad, bronzed, chiseled goliaths who seem to have leapt from the pages of Men’s Fitness Magazine. If you aren’t, much like this reviewer, you may not enjoy the true essence of the two-hour epic which is 300.

600 bare thighs aside, I wasn’t a huge fan of Zack Snyder’s interpretation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel. I place most of the blame not on Snyder, but on Robert Rodriguez. Their promotion play was established by showing off the “graphic novel” style of filmmaking, which is essentially comparing the comic book pages to the frames of the film, fast-cut, music video-style editing, heavy rock soundtrack, and shooting the majority of the film in front of a green screen. Now I’d hope the majority of you realize at this point that the style I just read off was identical to the style that Robert Rodriguez practically invented for 2005’s Sin City.

Now in playing devil’s advocate, I could say that the reasoning behind the similar styles lies with the fact that they are both done in Miller’s vision, and his artistic didn’t change much between the two graphic novels, and you could be asking at that point “Why should the film style change between the two films?” I’ll tell you why, dear readers. If this film was done with Rodriguez behind the helm once again, or even with his “Troublemaker Studios” at hand (which is where the majority of the green-screen activity was shot) it would have been far more acceptable. (more…)

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