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Tweeks: Invader Zim! Volume 1 Review

Back in the day….back before we were born even!…there was this much loved cartoon on Nickelodeon called Invader Zim. But check this out the powers that be at Oni Press have brought it back. And last weekend Volume 1 of the comic series was released! It was written by Jhonen Vasques & Eric Trueheart with artists Aaron Alexovich and Megan Lawton with Simon Troussellier and Rikki Simons.

Would be spoilers to say that we love it and now we not only want to watch the TV series, but we’d like new episodes as well?

The comics follow where the cartoon series left off. It’s about boy named Dib who knows that Zim is really an alien who wants to destroy the world, except no one believes him. It’s rated for teens, but we feel like these books would be loved by younger boys too. It would be loved by anyone who likes funny stories and fart jokes, actually. Watch the video and we’ll explain further.

Dennis O’Neil: Hawkman Is A Know-It-All!

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We’re now into the run of television’s latest superhero saga, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and while we’ve been treated to both Hawkman and his mate, who are among the stars of the show, we haven’t yet seen Hawkman’s omcromicon. Do we breathe a sigh of relief or add another bitter complaint to the list?

Or do we scratch our heads and ask what the dickens an… wha’d I call it? – an omcromicon is?

Let’s do that. But first, a confession: I’m on shaky ground here because I’m not sure that I’m spelling “omcromicon” correctly and a very hasty pass through the web got me zilch. Plenty of stuff on Hawkman and Hawkgirl (a.k.a. Hawkwoman) – more than I expected – and a goodly number of mentions of what was once the Hawks’ favored weapons, antique harmbringers like maces and such. But omcromicon? Nada.

So I’m forced to depend on my memory and woe is us.

But here we go anyway. First, the obvious question: What’s an omcromicon? If memory serves – and that will be the day – the device under discussion here is a bit of technology that originated on the Hawks” home planet Thanagar. (Was there a Thanagarian Steve Jobs?) The omcromicon knows everything that everybody on our planet – Earth – knows, which makes it way handier than a Smartphone. (I’m presuming the gadget’s mindreading is limited to sentient beings and I don’t know where that would leave, say, dolphins.).

Nifty tool for a bewinged, offworld vigilante, no?

When I had a polite, but unintimate, acquaintance with the Hawks, I think I pretty much ignored it. The reasons? Okay, here we go into Comics Writing 101, but I will keep it short. The essence of this kind of fiction is struggle: two or more antagonists are after the same thing and the story is a narrative of how one of them defeats the other. If that struggle is too easily resolved, the story is pretty short and maybe not too interesting.

So now our question becomes: Does the omcromicon make the Hawks’ job too easy? Yes and no. It allows the storyteller to skip potentially boring blather about how the good guys got to the place where they could wallop the bad guys and let’s admit it, that’s what we want to see. But maybe the good guys would gain stature and interest if they had to do the legwork on stage. Let them solve the problems too easily and… why do we admire this hero again?

Give a winged avenger an omcromicon and you’ve given him or her something usually reserved for deities: omniscience. Or something darn close to it. You sure you want to do that?

I didn’t, on those rare occasions when the Hawks were a professional concern. But if I’m so smart, why am I not omniscent?

Box Office Democracy: Kung Fu Panda 3

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I had no interest in seeing either of the first two Kung Fu Panda movies. I thought they were a place for a brand of Jack Black shtick that I had grown tired of by the time 2008 got here (for the record: peak Jack Black was 2003’s School of Rock). I had a strong idea of what these movies were, and I didn’t want anything to do with it. As far as Kung Fu Panda 3 is concerned, I was wrong. This is a charming movie, a funny movie, sometimes even a touching movie. I regretted nothing about my time spent watching Kung Fu Panda 3, and it’s the first movie of 2016 to make me feel that way.

Kung Fu Panda 3 tells a story I was happy to hear told. Po (Black) is told he needs to start teaching the rest of his action team (voiced by a perplexing mix of stars from Angelina Jolie to David Cross to Jackie Chan) and he’s terrible at it so he needs to find his inner self just as his long lost father returns and an unbeatable opponent returns from beyond the grave. It’s not the most intricate story, and there were things set up that never got paid off to my satisfaction— like a pivotal character always nervously saying he was “sent by the universe” sounds more like an evasion than the actual eventual truth. This isn’t a movie that wants to be deep; it’s a movie that wants to be fake deep and it does a fine job at that. It keeps the jokes apart from the fight scenes and provided some touching moments between Po and his biological father (Bryan Cranston) and his adoptive father (James Hong) that get to some real places.

The action scenes were better than I expected them to be, but I’ve since realized that was a low bar to get over. Dreamworks typically does good work but their action is usually more frenetic than it is good, I suspect it’s hard to get any material that would look as good as humans doing it just because of how their art style tends toward flatter character designs. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the fight scenes particularly because of how they used the individual animals to different effect. A crane did not fight like and alligator did not fight like a panda. The disappointing exceptions were Master Monkey, who is probably just a bit too person-like to have a distinct style, and Master Tigress, who was also just too much like a human to be exciting. Again, not having seen the previous two entries in this series perhaps none of this was new, fresh, or exciting but it was sort of a delight for me.

It feels weird having to say this, or that it feels like a point of recognition, but I appreciated that no one in this movie was doing an accent. There’s a long shameful tradition in Hollywood of over the top accents, and I’m so glad we’re past that here. It feels generally culturally sensitive, although mostly by being so generic about everything that it’s impossible to feel it being specific enough to be offensive. I did not care for their depiction of dumplings being quite so big though— where are these animals getting dumplings that are universally the size of bao?

If this review were itself a movie made for children I would be learning an important lesson about judging a book by its cover, but it isn’t and I’m not. Instead, I think I’m learning a lesson about the ever-improving work coming out of Dreamworks as they move away from being “the House That Shrek Built” and towards being the people that brought you How to Train Your Dragon. It also might be a lesson about coming back to Jack Black after so many years away, he might not be as stale as I thought although I feel for the parents who had to deal with their children responding to everything they were told this weekend with “chitty chitty chat chat” emulating the climax of this film. Kung Fu Panda 3 is a good movie. Although, it is possible that after Norm of the North, any competent animated movie was going to seem like Citizen Kane. It’s probably actually a good movie.

Box Office Democracy: The 5th Wave

The 5th Wave is a great trailer and a mediocre movie. There are some big ideas and ambitious visuals but they all made the advertisements and don’t take up much more room in the actual movie. What we get for the price of our ticket is a lot of watching characters move around the woods alone or in small groups. It almost never feels like the big action is happening on screen. It’s the kind of book adaptation where I’m sure the novel is a much more satisfying experience and am not sure why anyone bothered to make the film.

I want to talk more about the plot (and that will need to be behind a spoiler warning) and while I feel like I need to get some discussion of the non-plot aspects of this movie, they’re all just sort of there. The acting is not exceptional but by no means bad; I hope we get a bigger focus on some of the other kids if this turns into the franchise it so desperately wants to be. The visual effects, while used sparingly, are totally passable. There’s a palpable sense of dread several times during the film and I’m sure that’s the whole point of the endeavor, but looking back on it a day later I can remember only one such moment clearly. Honestly, my biggest technical complaint is that the quarantine zone looks a little sparsely populated, like they decided they could skimp on extras or something. The 5th Wave is technically sound and thoroughly inoffensive.

From here on I want to talk about the details of the plot and while I found it a bit predictable, you might not— so be warned.

The plan of the alien invaders felt distinctly like the result of a planning meeting you would see on a Saturday Night Live sketch. The aliens start their invasion with an Electromagnetic Pulse that permanently destroys all the technology on earth (and the awesome plane crash you see in the trailer), then they cause a series of massive earthquakes that also cause gigantic tsunamis and kill a bunch of people, and then they have this super version of the bird flu that kills most of the people that contract it. Up until this point these have been some ambitious plans that seem designed to eliminate the population in a relatively efficient manner. From there the plan becomes a convoluted mess: the aliens are going to assume human form, they’re going to tell the humans that they can assume human form to get them to turn against each other, they’re going to completely take over the military and train an army of child soldiers to think that other humans are really aliens so the child soldiers will kill the remaining humans. How is that their best plan? It seems just monstrously inefficient. It’s like the aliens spent their entire invasion budget on the earthquakes and the virus and just had to wing it. It leads to maybe one good Invasion of the Body Snatchers moment but I correctly predicted 100% of the aliens sitting in the theater so it wasn’t a slam-dunk. The more The 5th Wave told me what it was about, the less interesting it became.

The 5th Wave is the inevitable result of plugging every Young Adult novel that girls like into the Hollywood machine and releasing whatever comes out of the other end. It’s not good enough to be The Hunger Games, fresh enough to be Twilight, indecipherable enough to be The Maze Runner, or whatever Divergent is. It doesn’t seem to have a place except to just be a kind of YA wallpaper. There are germs of good ideas here and characters I wouldn’t be completely opposed to seeing more of if this takes off and becomes a franchise but I also wouldn’t remember or care if it just fades away an becomes nothing. The 5th Wave is the unfortunate symbol of progress, as a new thing becomes just another thing.

Molly Jackson: Barbie’s Back! Or… Barbies’ Back?

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February is always a busy month for me. With the start of the year behind us, I am faced with planning and organizing for the spring. The big event for my winter/spring is Toy Fair in a couple weeks.

Yes, Toy Fair is a major industry event that gives the buyers and press a chance to see what’s coming for the year in the toy world. Now, every year I’m excited to go but this year, I admit, I am definitely more excited than ever before. It took a little while to discover the reason, but it is pretty simple. It’s because of Barbie.

In case you missed the announcement last week, Barbie revealed their line expansion of new body types and racial markers for their doll line. Now you can buy a curvy, tall, or petite doll. You can buy multiple skin types, hair types, or eye colors. Barbie is finally showing that there is more than one type of woman. It may seem like a small change but pairing those image changes with the new career choices and this Barbie would look down on the toys of my generation.

I was never a huge Barbie fan as a kid, but I played with them and I always recognized their cultural significance. I still own some collectible Barbies, including my Star Trek Barbies. But to have Barbie, and by extension Mattel, recognize me and millions of other types of women? That is huge in my book.

The past year or so has seen toy manufacturers start having to listen to their consumers. It has also included campaigns to add women into toy line ups. I personally was part of the We Want Widow flash mobs, where we cosplayed as Black Widow in public to show toy manufacturers that she should be included more in Avengers toy sets. More recently, we got to watch manufacturers stumble over themselves as they rushed to put out Rey toys for the new Star Wars movie. They were shocked and surprised that kids and adults wanted to play as the lead role in the movie.

Fast forward to this year’s Toy Fair. Mattel, one of the major toy companies, has updated one of their oldest toy lines to bring it into a new age. Toy companies like I Am Elemental are still going strong among the sea of other options. In case you don’t know, I Am Elemental is a line of female superheroes action figures based on female figures from history. There will be a panel discussing if the gender divide in toys is justified. The best part is that the toy makers will be there to listen and hopefully learn.

It is true that I might be overly optimistic. The changes won’t be happening tomorrow, or probably even this year. But there is a chance that this change is real and is making an impact right now on the toy world. Encouraging the next generation of women through toys would give us a stronger and better generation to take us into the future. I have to hope that this mindset will stick and if it does, I will be happy to support them. And also play with their toys.

Mike Gold: TV Comics – Room For Another?

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This is the time of year when the broadcast networks start to reveal their pilots for the upcoming fall season. The fact that the broadcast networks still think in terms of a “fall season” is simply adorable.

The greatest contribution given to us by the American broadcasting industry is their reimagination of the rubber stamp. So we’ve got a few spin-offs of presently successful comics shows – ABC is toying with a show featuring Mockingbird as an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. castoff, and NBC is considering a show called Powerless about superpowerless wannabes who work at an insurance company. Yes, you’re right: we used to call superpowerless people “people.” Now they’re “powerless.” If this one hits air, it might be renamed “Super-Ability Challenged Beings.”

By the way, I hate the word “reimagine” so much that I’m going to start calling it the “I-word.”

So. How many comics-spawn teevee shows can we squeeze into our lives? Surprisingly – well, at least I’m surprised – at least one more.

The CW is shooting a pilot called Riverdale, staring the brand-new, modernized, more realistic, more plot-driven Archie Comics stalwarts. If, like me, you have no life outside of pop culture you might remember this show being under development with Fox. Well, they punted and, quite frankly, the CW is clearly a better fit.

According to the hype, Riverdale is “a surprising and subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica and their friends” – I guess this means somebody is going to miss her period – “exploring the surrealism of small town life, the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade.” OK, so this show is likely to be less realistic than, say, The Gilmore Girls.

One of the folks responsible for the recent editorial growth over at Archie Comics is their chief creative officer, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. He’s also worked on Supergirl, Big Love and Glee. Roberto’s an executive producer of this teevee show. Having a comics person with media chops in a supervisory position on such a program is de rigueur, and it’s a very good sign. So is having Jon Goldwater on board – he’s Archie Comics’ CEO and his family has been steering the Good Ship Archie since the original carrot-top’s creation 75 years ago. Jon can protect the family jewels, and that puts Archie one up on DC and Marvel.

The fact that Greg Berlanti is another executive producer and Riverdale comes from Berlanti Productions is… well… the obvious choice. Berlanti has more comics-related teevee shows on the air than Carter had little liver pills. He produces Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow. He also wrote the Green Lantern movie, but we won’t hold that against him. He is, or at least was, attached to the The Flash movie that is unrelated to his The Flash teevee series.

Yeah, I’m intrigued. I’d like to see a teen comedy that speaks to our times. Oddly, the first show that did this was The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which Archie Comics felt was a direct rip-off of their property. I can debate that point, but this isn’t the time for that. However, I will say that show contained Warren Beatty’s finest performances.

We’ll see if the CW picks Riverdale up. I just hope that sooner or later they get around to adding Cosmo the Merry Martian to the cast.

Emily S. Whitten: Winter Cleaning

deadpool-1679486You know how every year when spring rolls around you get that compulsion to turf out, e.g., those sweaters you’ve had since high school (high school, for heaven’s sake! That was an eon ago, back when you thought skater style was rad)? And those old magazines, and maybe a set of silverware someone gave you once but you’ve since replaced with a nicer set?

Well I always get that compulsion after Christmas. Possibly because I don’t have a ton of storage space, and inevitable I’ll return from Christmas break with some awesome thing that I have absolutely no place for. And thus, the turfing out begins.

It always takes me awhile, and I like to blame this on my grandmothers (who I loved dearly, by the way). You could not imagine two more different houses when it came to aesthetic than those of my two sets of grandparents (and while everyone contributes to the home decor, I think my grandmas set the tone the most).

My dad’s parents had a home that was well decorated and homey but only lightly accented with knick-knacks – a jar of marbles here; a stained glass biplane there; that weird spinning perpetual motion thing my grandpa loved. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place.

My mom’s parents, on the other hand, had a proliferation of collectibles, living side by side somewhat regardless of their categorization and in whatever room they felt like living in. Thus, my grandma’s perfumes hung out with her collection of Taco Bell dogs (she had the whole set at one point) and her beautiful hand-painted items kept company with Babe the talking pig. And so on.

It could be genetic, or it could be that I grew up in a house that combined these aesthetics; but either way, I find I am constantly warring with myself when it comes to home decorating…and especially when it comes to geek collectibles. I want a nice, neat place for everything and everything in its place; but I also want the “everything” to include a display of, e.g. every single Deadpool thing I own and at least some of my Minions (I can’t resist the Minions. They’re so silly!). And that’s how every now and again I look around and realize that suddenly, within my neatly organized habitat, my bookshelves have become so overrun with fun collectibles that I can’t get to my books. And why it takes me forever to do my sorting; because every decision of what to keep or give away is an agonizing debate of, “I must get rid of things to have a nice neat space,” versus, “I must display all twelve variations of Donatello from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I own, and no, I can’t get rid of that Pez dispenser, because then I’d only have eleven Donatellos!” Sigh.

My winter cleaning this year has unearthed a number of geek collectibles I didn’t even remember I had, and made it clear to me that maybe, just maybe, I have a wee bit of a collecting problem. It’s also made me wonder what it is that makes us geeks want to own every collectible for the things we love (and in my case, a lot of cute plush anthropomorphic food, as well). Is it a compulsion? An addiction? A desire to express our love of said things in visible ways? A way to wordlessly connect with fellow geeks through a simple display? Or is it simply the sheer happiness of owning and being able to see and touch the embodiment of things we love?

I don’t know. What I do know is that even though I vowed to myself that I wasn’t going to buy any more Deadpool or other collectibles, my mind also has the perpetual caveat unless they’re really awesome and I can’t live without them embedded in it, and clearly, I can’t live without this: a.k.a. the Hot Toys movie version Deadpool. I mean look at it: it’s a thing of Deadpoolian beauty. I must own it.

I also know that I have a lot of things I ought to be selling on e-Bay, and also, that I need more shelf space.

Until next time, Servo Lectio!

Joe Corallo: Allegiance

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This past weekend, fellow ComicMix columnist Molly Jackson and I went to see Allegiance on Broadway starring Lea Salonga, Telly Leung and George Takei. Outside of both of us being Star Trek fans (Molly a much bigger Trekkie than I), history and political science is what I studied in college some years ago and the mistreatment of our own citizens during World War II was something I was interested in knowing more about. And something I hoped never to see discussed seriously in our political process during my lifetime.

George TakeiHaving spent his early years in an American internment camp himself, George Takei has been very vocal and passionate about this performance. He has a will and drive to get this story out there, particularly during this political season where echoes of our past sins are arguably louder than ever. The loudest of which is four time bankrupt real estate mogul turned reality star turned politician Donald Trump.

Mr. Takei is so insistent on getting the story about Japanese internment camps out there to people who would once again call for this solution to our troubles overseas that he offers up a seat to Donald Trump every show. Yes, this is a political point. Yes, Donald Trump wouldn’t take George Takei up on this for a multitude of reasons. Yes, it’s free advertising for the show. If you can parse through all the partisan muck here, you do find a point. The point being that we need to evaluate the decisions of the past, the cost of the decisions we made as a country, and see if it’s worth it to do the same thing all over again

Empty ChairOne would hope that if someone did fully understand the gross injustices, human rights violations, and disgusting subhuman treatment that we exposed tens of thousand of our own citizens to for no fault of their own that any reasonable person would not want to push for that decision to be made again.

However, we are seeing people on the right running for president echoing these ideas and people responding to them. We’re also hearing people on the left call for a return to a Democratic party like FDR envisioned while conveniently leaving out not only the internment camps but his efforts to pack to the Supreme Court, the creation of the atomic bomb… just to name a few examples. It’s a bit distressing.

Not to Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter, who gave a million dollars to Donald Trump’s Veterans’ fundraiser. Yes, it wasn’t exactly money to Trump’s campaign, but the billionaire presidential candidate isn’t exactly strapped for cash, and if Perlmutter wanted to donate money to Veterans he could have done so much more easily and in a nonpartisan type fashion. He deliberately chose not to do so, and to give money to Trump in a way that made Marvel’s CEO a very public supporter of Trump’s candidacy.

Ike Perlmutter is not a stranger to controversy. He’s infamously made racist and sexist comments in the past that have been well-reported. And backing Trump adds xenophobia to the list. Publicly supporting a man who wants to bar all Muslims from entering the country while Marvel is trying to push and support the first high profile Muslim superhero, Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, is certainly at odds with each other.

Last week I talked about how I try to avoid boycotting. Right now, I’m somewhat conflicted. Writer G. Willow Wilson, who was instrumental in the creation of the Kamala Khan, is a bit conflicted herself on this. It’s a tough thing to think about. On the one hand, your money (though indirectly) is going to a person like Ike Perlmutter who may help elect someone like Donald Trump. On the other hand, we might see books getting cancelled and the comics division get consolidated before it even gets to a point of affecting someone like Perlmutter. Marvel has gone through serious consolidation in the past though, at the hands of Perlmutter, without even the threat of a boycott.

I said “might see books getting cancelled” before because a boycott isn’t necessarily a long term campaign. Look at what happened with Chik-fil-a over funding anti-LGBT campaigns. That was bad PR from them. The whole situation ended up with Chik-fil-a seeing its sales actually go up from the controversy, but did eventually end with them deciding to move away from anti-LGBT causes. It didn’t take too long and the business still thrives.

The same could be true of Marvel. If we don’t stay quiet on this and we yell as loud as the likes of Donald Trump, maybe Marvel will want to make a change or feel compelled to do so. A change like pushing Ike Perlmutter out of the company. Or maybe it’ll even push Marvel to focus more on diversity and new ideas to compensate for people like Ike Perlmutter and the bad press surrounding him.

We need to take a long hard look at ourselves and our world. Is supporting anti-Muslim rhetoric something we are okay with being a part of, no matter how direct? Even if only a penny of my money or our money went towards that, is it okay? Does creating a positive Muslim superhero role model, Kamala Khan, make it better? Will that positive Muslim superhero role model make it better if government officials come and take tens of thousands of Muslims from our communities? What if they only take hundreds? What if they only take dozens? What if only one innocent life was ruined by the support of xenophobic politicians bolstered by the money and public support of one of the biggest and most successful franchises in the history of the world? Will we wave our Ms. Marvel comics at those being lined up and taken away and tell them we tried? What about the fate of the millions of undocumented immigrants that have been threatened to be rounded up and shipped out? Will we wave our Captain America comics and tell them that our nostalgia and fuzzy feelings were more important to us than basic human rights and dignity for all?

And beyond Marvel, what about the other items we purchase, food we eat, energy sources we consume, where does all of that come from? How does it come about? Where does it go? Do we care? Should we care? Could we handle it even if we wanted to?

Either way and no matter what, if enough people speak out Marvel will have to take more responsibility and speak up. If we don’t give them a pass they’ll have to evaluate the decisions of the past, the cost of the decisions they’ve made, and see if it’s worth it to do the same thing all over again. I hope we’ll see that the people involved will have learned from these missteps, but if seeing Allegiance with Donald Trump’s consistently empty seat prevalent this past weekend has taught me anything, it’s that I shouldn’t count on that.

Mindy Newell: Yesterday’s News?

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Last week, after I submitted my column to Old Man Editor Mike Gold, I made myself a cup of English Breakfast tea, sliced up some mozzarella and cheddar cheese, grabbed some crackers and got into bed – this woman has to get up way before the first rays of the sun crack the horizon during her work week – and so I didn’t read Old Man Editor Mike Gold’s e-mail in response to my submission until the next afternoon. It said something like: Jessica Jones is old news. It debuted on Netflix in November.

Well, gee, that was only two months ago, Old Man Editor Mike. Two months and 16 days, to be precise.

But I get it. In today’s hyper-streamed world, 10 weeks might as well be 1010 (or 10,000,000,000). There’s so much to watch, so much to read, so much to talk about on the information superhighway that was brought to us courtesy of the U.S. military industrial complex and Al Gore – the World Wide Web, baby – that it’s just about impossible for anyone to stay absolutely current and up-to-date unless you happen to be a green-skinned alien and Legionnaire from the 21st century named Brainiac 5. Even Chris Matthews, of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, now has a segment he calls “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” in which various reporters and pundits tell him, well, something he doesn’t know. And he has a research staff.

Sometimes I feel like the Gallifreyan, trapped in a confession dial for 7000 years while the universe just merrily keeps on expanding, minding its own business, and intelligent life and civilizations and planets and suns within it are born, thrive, wither, and die.

I can’t even keep up with my e-mail. Every day, for instance, I get at least three notifications from Comic Book Resources (CBR). I delete the ones that don’t sound interesting to me, but even the ones I want to read pile up faster than those cars and buses and trucks that were stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last weekend. Then, by the time I actually have the time to check them, they are all old news which I’ve either already heard about, or read about, or watch somewhere else on the net. And that’s just CBR. There’s also Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, Den of Geek, Bleeding Cool News, Michael Davis World, et. al. Oh, and that also includes ComicMix.

Plus my other e-mails and notifications. On Saturday it took me two hours just to clear out my mailbox. Some of the stuff dated back to November, and I never even read them. I’m telling you, it’s like reading a newspaper with the headline U.S. and Japs At War.

But…

I am up-to-date on my X-Files. (I’m thinking that it rocks!) I saw that movie its first weekend in theatres. And I’m actually ahead of the ball on Downton Abbey, having just watched Episode 8 of “The Final Season” on Amazon Prime.

But…

I missed the premiere of Legends of Tomorrow, Parts 1 and 2, and I missed last week’s Supergirl because I watched X-Files. So now I have to catch up those two shows. And I’m embarrassed to admit that Daredevil is still in my queue.

Not to mention that I have three more episodes of Jessica Jones to go.

Jesus, I wish I had a TARDIS.

Ed Catto: Paul Gulacy – More than just the Master of Kung Fu

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Headshot Paul-Gulacy2016 is looking to be a big year for Paul Gulacy, with the long-awaited reprinting of his groundbreaking Master of Kung Fu series and as a guest of Honor at the San Diego Comic-Con. But in some ways every year is a big year for Paul. He’s a tireless workhorse who is always creating and producing gorgeous artwork. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Paul on a few projects (please don’t ask about the Lady Gaga thing) and it’s always been enjoyable and invigorating. This interview is no exception. As you’ll see, Paul is witty and wistful and, as always, honest and authentic. He’s the real deal.

mokf-64-gulacy-8966757Ed Catto: Marvel has announced that the trademark and licensing rights to Master of Kung Fu have been resolved and they are finally reprinting the series. How do you feel about that and how do you feel about your work from the period?

Paul Gulacy: It’s wonderful news. It’s about time and everybody I talk to is going nuts. They can’t wait. The way I feel about it is probably the same way everybody feels about it – including Stan Lee. It’s simply terrific news. Not to mention about time. I can’t think of any other popular comic that had to put up and deal with so much nonsense.

EC: When you think about your run on Master of Kung Fu, what are your fondest memories?

PG: Having a ball. Working for Marvel, a great series, a fantastic writer like Doug Moench. It was awesome. We were the springboard creators that launched an entirely new direction and new wave for the industry. We were the 70s guys that some pop culture enthusiasts determined to be a revolutionary period especially in the world of pop culture. When you think of some of your favorite 80s tunes you might be surprised to find out that those songs were recorded in the 70s. The Talking Heads come to mind… and Blondie.

captain-action-cover-jun13b-6707701EC: This past year you contributed a cover to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide as one of their prestigious cover artists. Can you describe that process and how you went about it?

PG: Yeah, that was quite the honor. Very nice to make a contribution to such an iconic Americana pop culture treasure. Many people don’t realize just how popular Captain Action and friends were. I recall the TV commercials for the toys when I was a kid. It was an honor to do the commemorative anniversary cover.

EC: You’ve illustrated Batman a number of times, and I’m struck by how often you brought something new to the party – things like a clever costume tweak or a new Batmobile. What’s it like to work on Batman on how does that differ from other assignments?

legends-of-the-dark-knight-11-paul-gulacy-2913106PG: If I’m not mistaken, Doug and I were asked to re-introduce the development of the Batmobile. And that took place in the series called “Prey” (in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight). Later on we also re-introduced Gordon’s idea of utilizing a bat signal and why.

EC: Recently you contributed to an issue of the DC Western series, Jonah Hex. The issue was stunning, and the opening sequence with a burning building still sticks with me. What can you tell us about illustrating other genres?

PG: Maybe it might be a good idea to stay away from matches, Ed. No, Hex was a blast. Justin and Jimmy always came thru with a doozie storyline. And of course I come from the era where the western was all over television. Plus, I grew up in Ohio riding horses. As a kid I couldn’t stop drawing horses. But again, those guys always came through with an inspiring script.

EC: You’re well known for illustrating beautiful and sexy women, Paul. What’s your secret?

batman-catwoman-gulacy-7808082PG: Perhaps it’s the Jonah Hex after-shave I splash on every morning to start my day. I admire pretty women. They catch my eye and capture my attention. All kinds, shapes and sizes. On my Catwoman run I used three different models who posed for me, and at this point I better shut my big trap before a frying pan comes down in my direction.

EC: By looking at your finished artwork, it seems to me that you’ve enjoyed all your assignments. You never phone it in. But I know that can’t be the case. Were there any projects you were less than thrilled with?

PG: Too many to count. Everybody has those clunkers that make you roll your eyes and shake your head at. I’ve dialed it in on more than one occasion, often to just pay the rent, or get some fast cash. You have to take it on the chin.

EC: Conversely, what projects did you work on in the past that you wish would get another lease on life?

lady-action-model-gulacy-6537991PG: Some independent company characters like Sabre or The Grackle come to mind. The characters that Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey developed for a series called Time Bomb for Radical Publishing I thought were awesome. I really had fun on that story. They come by once in a blue moon, and the fact that they are indie gives you more latitude. My entire career is established for the most part for working on obscure, oddball titles. I’m certainly not known for my Captain America contributions.

EC: Dark Horse is publishing The Rook. It’s a relaunch you’re working on with writer Steven Grant. How did this one come about and what are your thoughts on the character and time travel stories?

Gulacy Catwoman PortraitPG: Both Steven and I were contacted by Ben Dubay who holds the rights to the Rook character that was developed by his uncle, Bill Dubay. Bill passed away a couple of years back. I actually worked for Bill when he was on staff at Warren Publishing in New York City. Among a handful of stories I did for them was a still unpublished Rook story.

The Rook is a time traveler. Maybe it’s a good time to get that in here. Anyhow, Ben was on a mission to get it in the hands of Dark Horse and that worked out. We have one four-part series completed and we are currently working on the next series of four issues. We’re having a ball. Steven’s scripts are just off the hook fun. And don’t be surprised to see this character appear beyond the printed page.

EC: Thanks so much for your time, Paul.

Paul Gulacy’s 2016 convention appearances include: Cal Comic Com January 31st in California’s Orange County, Comic-Con International (San Diego Comic-Con) July 21- 2th in San Diego,
Monster and Robots, August 27 and 28 in New Jersey’s Garden State Convention Center.

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