The Mix : What are people talking about today?

NYCC — News in brief

  • News
  • February 23, 2007

Everyone’s getting into the podcasting act! Jamal Igle (see pictorial) will be participating in a serial podcast called The Mighty Mighty Adventures of Earl-Wayne and Chuckchuk (come on, you know you want to tune in on the basis of the name alone), which should be fun as he has such a terrific voice. And an old friend from college, David Levin, tells me his company, Brainstorm, Inc., is getting ready to do daily comics videocasts next month. With so much multimedia centered around comics, oversaturation might be a concern, but nobody ever complains about too much movie and TV coverage.

And in case you missed this news item amid the pictorial, Rob Walton’s Ragmop has been collected. This is huge news to those of us with very fond memories of that title. Lots of new words and art, updating ending, the whole shebang. Must dash and find out more stuff!

NYCC — Early sightings

  • News
  • February 23, 2007

Annnnd we’re off!

A librarian friend of mine used to sigh that his job would be perfect "if it weren’t for the patrons."  One is tempted to say the same about a convention that’s only in the trade show stages — right now it’s very comfortable and easy to move around and seems pretty organized. But it also has the air of anticipatory set-up to it.  The comics industry works better when it’s inclusionary, and as nice as it is to meet and greet pros there’s just more excitement in the air when the fans add to the mix.  But let’s start with some photos, if the Javits Center wi-fi connection holds out:

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This is what you see from the entrance. (more…)

Kneel before Doom!

  • News
  • February 23, 2007

As a tip of the hat to Matt Fraction and Punisher War Journal #4, and to keep you occupied while we’re out on the convention floor collecting stories, we present this favorite item from the past, Dr. Doom’s Top Ten Euphimisms for Sex.

ComicMix takes Manhattan

  • Uncategorized
  • February 23, 2007

To quote Dr. Seuss, "We are here, we are here, we are here!"

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Pictured above, from left to right: Standing, we have Brian Alvey, Mike Gold, Mike Raub and Glenn Hauman.  Seated are Martha Thomases and me, Elayne Riggs, as the Beav — oh no wait, people might think that’s something other than a reference to SCTV, never mind.

Anyway, we’re here at the New York Comic Con all weekend, through today’s trade hours of 10 AM through 4 PM then the open-to-public show itself (4 to 9 tonight, 10 to 8 tomorrow, 10 to 5 Sunday), getting news and views and definitely some schmooze. We have our cameras and recorders and other digital goodies to get the full story from anyone who flags us down or veesy-versey, so please look for us and give us feedback.  We look forward to seeing all of our friends not just from NY but from all over the world.  "San Diego East" has begun!

Kyle Baker goes bananas

  • News
  • February 23, 2007

From Cartoon Network’s Class of 3000, here’s some Kyle Baker work.

Did we mention Kyle will have a booth at the New York Comicon? Did we mention he’s doing caricatures? Did we mention the pretty women who will be at the booth? Go forth and find him and buy many copies of his books. Tell him ComicMix sent you.

Michael Davis: Nut jobs

  • News
  • February 23, 2007

michael-davis100-5416924I said in my first article that I was a pretty simple guy. I see clear distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, love and hate, and Republican and Democrat. Blah, blah, blah. To that end, I think there are some things that people don’t talk about but should. Clearly in comics there is a subject or fifty that we don’t talk about. Well I’m going to talk about one right now. That subject is… nuts.

Not the nuts that come in a can, but rather people who are nuts… as in crazy.

No, I am NOT talking about people who have a real mental illness. I am talking about those people who have convinced themselves (sometimes with plenty of help from friends and family) that they are entitled to something that nobody else sees. Or their way of doing something is the only way something should be done regardless of any logical reasoning. (more…)

Anime charity event turns into scam

  • Uncategorized
  • February 22, 2007

Via Alan Kistler at Monitor Duty, an ugly convention story out on the west coast:

Anime Film Foundation (AnimeFF) was founded as a charity for breast cancer research, specifically the Susan G. Komen Foundation. The group launched the “Tour for the Cure” anime con and stated that all proceeds would be donated to breast cancer research. They recruited several people in the anime community, including those at TheOtaku.com and Richard Stott, founder of the Anime Vegas convention. MTV was ready to video tape part of the convention.

And then things went bad. It turned out that no one signed the contracts for the convention rooms. The convention had to become a single day thing when it had originally been intended to last three days. Several events were canceled. Guests were told that promised accomodations weren’t available.

At the end of the day, AnimeFF representative Jeff Borncamp told the convention center people that the show was over, at which point he allegedly left with all the registration money and dealer deposits. What was supposed to be a charity event appeared to observers to be a "hit and run" scam on not only the anime and gaming communities but on people who thought they were involved in donating money to breast cancer research.

TheOtaku.com has promised to dedicate their resources to bringing all the facts to light and ensuring that this kind of thing never happens again. As far as we know, the Susan G. Komen Foundation was merely having their name taken in vain, and they do good work.

Podcast #5 up and running

  • Uncategorized
  • February 22, 2007

Our second reviewer, longtime comics writer Tony Isabella, makes his debut as a ComicMix podcast critic and spells out his rules and regulations. Archie Comics takes on Marvel Comics in "Civil Chores." More previews of this weekend’s NYCC. 

Mike Raub delivers the news and the goods on ComicMix podcast #5 — which you can get right now by pressing play:

(more…)

Wizard appoints new wizard

  • News
  • February 22, 2007

Scott Gramling rejoins Wizard Entertainment as the new Editor-in-Chief of Wizard. Gramling will be responsible for continuing to build circulation and awareness of the Wizard brand and overseeing content for Wizard, InQuest Gamer, ToyFare and Anime Insider, in addition to the website and The Wizard World Tour.  This marks his’s return to Wizard, where 12 years ago he began as an associate editor.

Most recently Gramling served as Sections Editor, Deputy Editor and Editor-In-Chief at FHM.  Before that, he was the Associate Editor of Sports Illustrated For Kids‘ book division.

John Ostrander: Scattershot – Past / Present

  • Uncategorized
  • February 22, 2007

johnostrander200-1212402Perhaps it’s a sign of aging when you’re more attuned to what came before than what’s going on now, especially in entertainment. Oh, I’m up on what’s going on with movies and TV (less so in music) and I certainly have my faves in those areas. Recently, however, I’ve been re-discovering some music I’d had before, some TV I had seen when I was a boy, and have found that some of my favorite movies were created before I was born. This column is a grab-bag (hence "scattershot" — it’ll be our code for columns that have a variety of topics) of some of those. Given the age of the material, these are probably less reviews than post-mortems.

• We Five came out of San Francisco about 1965 when I was still in high school. If you know this folk-rock group at all, it will be for their one big hit, "You Were On My Mind". I not only loved their big single, I bought their two albums, the first named for the hit single and the second was "Make Someone Happy". They broke up after the second album and later reformed with new members. I’ve discovered that the reformed We Five still plays venues today.

(more…)

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