The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Michael Davis, The Nigga You Love To Hate

comicmixxx-5102930“I heard payback’s a motherfucking nigga, that’s why I’m sick of getting treated like a goddamn stepchild, Fuck a punk cause I ain’t him.” • Ice Cube, The Nigga You Love To Hate

The truth will set you free.

As a African American man, my truth is not unlike the action toys I once collected with such gusto. To really enjoy both an action figure and truth I must purchase additional accessories

Truth can be bought. Truth can be killed. Truth can be jailed, silenced, controlled, and changed.

Truth with proof is the only truth that matters most times. That’s most times.

Not to long ago I was arrested after two drunken white people attacked me and I defended my self. It’s on tape. The Los Angeles D.A.’s office didn’t even look at the tape.

They wanted to go to trial even though 18 people in some way supported my story yet only two backed my attacker’s story and those two were my attackers.

Black men (and increasingly more black women) have been targeted long before the current crop of videos that show some cops think so little of black lives. Even when there is a videotape, public outrage on the net and the media in general, even then, it may not matter.

How many millions of people saw what the police did to an unarmed black man for daring to tell them he was tired of being harassed? Eric Gardner was murdered and no matter how many FOX News reports slant that to fit their racist agenda that man was murdered. For as long as I remember, black people have shouted “the truth shall set you free” as if the very words have power.

Truth set nobody free but his murderers.

This sort of occurrence is rare, not as rare as white America thinks but rare. I use it only as an example of how truth can be manipulated to be something other than simply truth. I make no comparisons between others and myself as admittedly, Eric Gardner’s tragic story is much more severe and important than anyone or mine I reference.

The truth is not just what you say is, it’s what others say isn’t.

Almost half a million people have viewed “The History Of Static Shock” on the Variant web site. Almost a year before the Static was a live action show or Milestone 2.0 was announced, I contacted Variant and asked them to changed the credits to “Static Shock was created by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle and Michael Davis.”

I wrote articles, emails, and Facebook messages. As of July 2015 nothing has been done. I had no idea the show was going to happen, I thought I’d be a part of M2.0 but had no idea when we were going to announce, I just knew that piece was going to be trouble for me, and like always, I was right.

I’ve always looked at truth as a fact that can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

That last line stands repeating. The truth is a fact that can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. However, having proof isn’t the power play the power play is patience. Patience, my friends, is what most who dismiss me believe I don’t have because I’m loud.

Patience is why many think I’m lucky not smart.

I can prove without a shadow of a doubt I asked Variant to change the Static video before it hurt my business. They didn’t, it did. They most likely paid no attention to me because I’m loud.

Bad, bad, move.

There, hidden in plain site, is the reason I am not a partner in Milestone 2.0. Milestone 2.0 the company I named and have been trying to bring to life since 2000. Patience, the power that allows me to endure the last seven months of M2.0 bias spin.

I wrote of my support of M2.0. I wrote how the change in the infrastructure caused a change in my ability to be apart of M2.0. I wrote how I was not going to be involved in another black-on-black war.

All true, although incomplete. What was also true was the only one talking was me.

I didn’t want to talk. I made it clear to M2.0 I wanted a statement issued that would answer the questions I knew were coming. I just wanted to be left alone, left out of the storm I knew was coming.

I was told a statement was forthcoming. Nope. No, it wasn’t.

I wrote to Denys, Derek, and Reggie and have written to them regularly since the day the news dropped around the world unveiling M2.0

To this day, I’ve been ignored, completely or dismissed as a joke in any M2.0, interview, or panel, and although I reached out time and time and time again to my former partners, I have gotten not one response from any of them via email. Reggie was kind enough (no joke or sarcasm) to return a text I sent him, apologizing for a horrendous message I left him. Denys and I have spoken on two occasions in almost eight months since the bomb dropped.

However, as of this writing, no email I’ve sent has been returned, although one wasn’t completely ignored. In yet another attempt to build a bridge between us I wrote a M2.0 panel description for the SDCC program book: Milestone 2.0: The Return Of The Mack.

They used the description, yet I received no email thanking me. I was responsible for every single Milestone panel, party, event, and hype at SDCC since Milestone folded and over the last four years, I’ve been on a tear.

From the Comic Book Resources article Milestone 2.0 Promises, New Static, Icon & More:

Racialicious editor-at-large Arturo Garcia asked if the new stories would be a reboot and asked about statements made by co-founder Michael Davis at his black Panel previously in the convention, saying that his Milestone legacy had been “glossed over.”

“Some of the mythos and storylines, things that we did before, will resonate in what we’re doing now, but it’s a reboot,” Cowan replied. “It’s a new environment. It’s the Dakota Universe; it’s updated, juiced up. There’s new characters, old characters, there’s a lot of stuff. As far as Static Shock is concerned, Michael’s awesome, but the thing with Static Shock, there were five people in that room when Static Shock was created, very simple. We all contributed to Static, we all had something to say about him, we all jammed on Static just like the rest of the other characters. Any time you see ‘Static Shock’ on the screen, you will see credits. Do you know what those credits say? Michael Davis. Denys Cowan. Dwayne McDuffie. Derek Dingle. Every time. No one has been denied credit for anything. Let’s look at the facts.

That’s just laughable, but since we’ve on that, why has there been no attempt to give that, “five guys in room” explanation to any other Milestone character, none of which I’m credited with most places?

Robert Washington, John Paul Leon, and Dwayne are overwhelmingly credited with the creation of Static. Look at any Static Shock press release over the last year where’s my name? Denys has gone on record saying who was the driving force behind each book. Dwayne, Icon, Denys, Hardware, Static, me.

YES! There were five guys in the room when the superhero Static was born.

YES! A team came up with a black teenage superhero modeled after Spider-Man with static electricity powers! YES! A team came up with Static! YES! There is no ‘I’ in team!

But the guy who created the Static universe, friends, family, attitude and swagger that makes up who and what Vigil Hawkins is? That guy did that by himself when he wrote the Static bible all by himself.

I know! I know! I was part of a team! There is no ‘I’ in team! But…there is a ‘m’ and ‘e’ that spells me.

There has been movement and I do notice my name is appearing more but that’s because of my efforts and the efforts of those who see an injustice happening.

That’s a verifiable fact.

You want to look at some other facts? Fine, lets do that.

  1. Any and all actions I’ve taken regarding Milestone over the last 15 and with the last four years particularly, were undertaken to bring Milestone back to life. Again, I was responsible for every single Milestone panel, party, event, and hype at SDCC since Milestone folded.
  2. I was never told I was not to be a part of M2.0. I was just left out.
  3. The day I found out I cried like a little girl to each and every M2.0 member.
  4. No one has ever expressed anything in writing nor was I told anything of substance when I asked why I was left out.

All of the above are verifiable.

They may think what they did and why they are doing is the right thing to do. But when someone says “Let’s look at the facts,” that implies someone is lying, in this instance that someone is me. I gather M2.0 sees me as a problem. I wasn’t, they made me one.

I don’t want war all I want is, kindness and fairness. I know what’s being said and to whom and I could care less. I have no desire to be part of M2.0 because they don’t want me. My contributions and efforts over the last four years were embraced then without a word to me ignored and discounted. I was called crazy and dismissed at the Milestone 2.0 panel at SDCC. I was devastated when the world knew when I did I was not a part of a Milestone 2.0.

Nothing above makes me a problem.

Sometimes harsh in anger, sometimes begging trough tears so thick I couldn’t see, I put out my hand and still not one act of kindness was I shown.

That’s why I’m a problem.

Next: Reasons To Be Fearful Are Three

 

 

 

Mike Gold: James T. Kirk Is A What? And Ted Cruz Is A… What?

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This is one of the many reasons I find politics to be a spectacular spectator sport – even when that nutcase Donald Trump isn’t sucking up all the ether in the bottle.

According to an interview published in that Communist rag The New York Times, USS Enterprise Captain James T. Kirk is a Republican, while USS Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a Democrat. This is according to Republican Ted Cruz, who is one of the many, many, many, many people running for president.

Ted Cruz named his company Cruz Enterprises after Stark Enterprises, according to the interview. This must reaffirm my fellow ComicMix columnist Martha Thomases’s belief that Tony Stark is a Republican, an opinion I share despite Tony’s sense of humor. This was made clear in the Civil War storyline.

Therefore, one might assume Captain America is a Democrat. Perhaps, but I think he might be an all-out radical. After all, left-wing activist Abbie Hoffman wore an American flag shirt on The Dick Cavett Show. The shirt was Chroma-keyed out, which proves ABC/Capital Cities was run by a bunch of imbeciles… as opposed to ABC/Disney, which is run by a bunch of imbeciles. But I digress.

Ted told the Times “Let me do a little psychoanalysis. If you look at Star Trek: The Next Generation, it basically split James T. Kirk into two people. Picard was Kirk’s rational side, and William Riker was his passionate side. I prefer a complete captain. To be effective, you need both heart and mind.

“Kirk is working class; Picard is an aristocrat. Kirk is a passionate fighter for justice; Picard is a cerebral philosopher. The original Star Trek pressed for racial equality, which was one of its best characteristics, but it did so without sermonizing… I think it is quite likely that Kirk is a Republican and Picard is a Democrat.”

Perhaps Ted is unaware that Picard is French and, as such, is not eligible to vote in American elections. However, this gross mistake is understandable as Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta. In case you skipped geography class the way Senator Cruz obviously skipped civics class, Calgary is part of the great nation of Canada. This hasn’t stopped him from running for president, although it is possible that a constitutional challenge might. Otherwise, we would be tipping our hat to President Schwarzenegger right now.

Ted might have been born in Canada, but he is of Cuban descent. This explains why he took pains to point out that he “can affirmatively say that I have made out with far fewer space aliens,” emphasis mine.

He did not clarify which of the many Spider-people he supports. The fact that Ted has strong Hispanic roots does not necessarily mean he’s a fan of the Miles Morales version, who is half-black, half-Hispanic.

Which puts Miles one-up on Barack Obama… who is also a Spider-Man fan. Like most presidents since the Great Depression, Obama has appeared in quite a few comic books, including Amazing Spider-Man. He’s been known to conspire with Amanda Waller, a person who, I strongly suspect, would not tolerate a man such as Ted Cruz.

 

Doctor Who returns to theaters in 3-D, with preview of Series 9

  • News
  • July 28, 2015

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Fathom events will team with BBC Worldwide North America for a national broadcast of the Doctor Who series eight climax Dark Water/Death in Heaven this fall.  Scheduled for September 15th and 16th, and presented in 3D, the event will also feature a new prequel teaser for series nine entitled The Doctor’s Meditation.  In addition Wil Wheaton, former Wesley Crusher and now multiform internet sensation, will host a special interview with Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman.

The two-part season finale featured the return of The Master, in the form of Michelle Gomez, who has already been confirmed to re-appear in the two part series nine opener The Magician’s Assistant / The Witch’s Familiar, set to premiere several days after this presentation on September 19.

Fathom Events has had a several-year partnership with BBC, beginning with a national broadcast of the 50th anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor, which the company described as bringing the “largest surges of traffic ever” to their website.  They’ve since broadcast the Series 8 premiere episode Deep Breath, as well as a presentation of the David Tennant two-parter Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel. Fathom have presented a number of genre-friendly events, including an ongoing series of science fiction films “commented on” by MST3K alumni at RiffTrax, and an upcoming return to theaters of the animated classic The Iron Giant.

Tickets go on sale July 31 – check the Fathom Events website for a list of participating theaters.

Box Office Democracy: Pixels

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I remember rather clearly the first time I saw the trailer for Pixels. It has a cool introduction about sending examples of 1982 culture in to space and then it quickly moves on to some quick shots of the attack and then the coup de grace of the giant Pac-Man crashing through midtown Manhattan eating a fire truck. For the first minute of the trailer it looked like a movie I would like and then they revealed that Adam Sandler was the star of the movie and all of my interest vanished. I know the kind of movies Adam Sandler makes and they aren’t clever or original, they’re outdated and formulaic. This wouldn’t be a fun deconstruction of old arcade games like Wreck-It Ralph or even a fun action movie like The Last Starfighter. The best-case scenario for Pixels was as the home of a spectacular fart joke. It wasn’t.

There’s nothing in Pixels that feels substantial enough to criticize. The plot is a mess and full of contradictions starting with the premise that aliens recreated video games down to glitches in the 1982 code of Galaga (a crucial plot point for Sandler to prove his credentials early in the film) from a video tape of children playing the game. The aliens communicate through the images of 80s pop culture icons and it’s a nice device, one of the only things that feel that way in the whole film, but other than some exposition thrown in the third act we never learn anything about this menace other than they attack using video games. The movie pretends to venerate this bygone era of arcade gaming but then makes choices that anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the subject matter knows are complete bunk like cheat codes in Pac-Man or Q*bert, famous for his garbled voice and word balloons filled with symbols, giving extensive exposition in English. It feels like everything about the movie was hammered out over lunch one day and no one ever thought about it again. I almost feel stupid complaining about it because I’ve already thought about it more than everyone who worked on the movie.

All of the characters in Pixels are paper-thin nothings but the women seem to get a particularly short end of the stick. The female lead (Michelle Monaghan) is a Lieutenant Colonel and in charge of some nebulous DARPA team but all of her character traits are defined by men she is attracted to (Sandler), she was cheated on by her husband, and she doesn’t want her son to be harmed. She might even do better than Jane Krakowski who plays the First Lady of the United States who doesn’t understand that her husband is busy with his job and demands he make time for ludicrous public dates in some kind of effort to become some shrew singularity. There’s the ideal virtual woman of video games (Ashley Benson) who doesn’t talk even when brought to life by these aliens even when other characters that never talked in their games talk. None of these characters in a vacuum would be that big of a deal but when they’re all like this and even the off-screen female characters are treated poorly (slutty pilates instructor, ex-wife who has an affair with fertility doctor) it adds up to a sour taste in the mouth. Luckily it doesn’t linger because nothing in this film is capable of holding the minds o the audience for more than a few minutes,

Pixels is similarly unkind to nerdy men, a demographic in far less peril in film but one that deserves better than this movie. These characters are all just aspects of the sexless loser nerd stereotype that has persisted for 30 years and should feel outdated at this point. The movie installs a central principle of its anchor relationship that nerds are better kissers because they appreciate it more. The movie wants to play on this nostalgia for pop culture icons and is then spectacularly unkind to the people who would feel most warmly about it. When The Big Bang Theory is doing dramatically better at characterization than your feature film it’s time to scrap the whole thing and move on.

I wish I thought Adam Sandler cared that this is a bad movie. He’s made so many bad movies in a row, produced so many bad movies in a row, that I have to believe he’s either completely insane and believes these movies are fantastic or he knows they’re good enough to get paid, get to the next one, and keep supporting whatever golden yacht lifestyle he lives. I wish he made better movies, selfishly, so I wouldn’t feel compelled to go see these wretched things to review them. We’ve all heard the stories coming out of his next film, The Furious Six, and we can probably guess this isn’t getting any better. Adam Sandler can do better than this, he has before, and I wish he cared enough to do better again.

The Point Radio: Sex, Drugs And Denis Leary

Denis Leary is back on weekly TV, bringing along a big dose of SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK AND ROLL. He talks about his new FX series and how he brought in a few famous friends to make it work. Plus FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE has returned for a new season on TruTV. Jennifer Bartels and Lil’ Rel Howry talk about why this ain’t you’re daddy’s SNL.

In a few days, we’re back and we heard to the set of the CBD summer hit, UNDER THE DOME.   Be sure and follow us on Twitter now here.

Tweeks: Read “This One Summer” This Summer: #ChallengedChallenge Week 3

For week #3 of the ComicMix Challenged Challenge, we discuss This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki.  This Caldecott Medal winner was challenged because some over-conscended parents didn’t bother to read the book jacket, assumed this ages 12 & up recommended book was meant for their young readers. Duh!  So, yeah, we talk about that, why we loved the book, and what might be questionable if you are worried about the subject matter for you kids.  Watch and learn and definitely read This One Summer!

Mindy Newell: Weekend Hoosier?

dc-bombshells-8265958“I’ll make it.” •  Jimmy Chitwood (Maris Valainis) • Hoosiers (1986)

Wow. Two weeks. That’s a long time to wait with bated breath. My apologies to everyone who turned blue while waiting to find out if I had broken my ankles.

To reprise: A little more than two weeks ago, Wednesday July 9 to be exact, I fell down the last flight of stairs of my apartment building. Immediate, serious pain in both feet and ankles – my knees weren’t doing so great either. Afraid to move, I yelled for help, but nobody came – it was 6 in the morning – and as I reached for my cell phone…duh! I had left it upstairs. But somehow, whether it was through the surge of adrenalin rushing through my veins or just pure stubborn idiocy, I got up, gritted my teeth, and shuffled/hobbled to my car.

Just using the gas and brake pedals sent sharp knives up my legs, but I told myself that if any bones were broken I wouldn’t be able to be doing this. I didn’t drive to my local hospital though; I wanted to get to work where my friends were, who happened to be nurses, plus of course there would be doctors. I wasn’t thinking clearly, I just wanted someone to tell me that nothing was broken;

I had some crazy idea that I could stick my feet under the C-arm and have Fantastic Frank, as Stan Lee would say, X-ray technician extraordinaire, also as Stan would say, take a picture and ease my fears – or not. I don’t know why I didn’t just go straight to the ER at the hospital across the street – it’s a Level One trauma center, and I had visions of sitting there all day while other, more seriously ill and wounded people were seen and attended to; and let’s face it, I didn’t want to know that I had broken anything, because I was supposed to fly out to Indianapolis on Friday – the day after tomorrow at the time – for the wedding of my cousin, Delightful Devin to his beautiful Marvelous Maria, as Stan would describe them.

See, I kept remembering a tale my brother had told me about how one autumn morning he and a bunch of his fellow residents were out having a game of touch football, and how one of the guys fell and was moaning and clutching his leg and saying that he had broken it, and how my brother and his band of merry medical men jeered him, saying “don’t be a baby, get up, walk it out,” and how they made this poor guy play out the rest of the game before taking him to the ER, where they all discovered that, yes, indeed, the guy had broken his leg.

So I was a mess, physically and emotionally.

But as I was laying on a stretcher in our Post-Anesthesia Care Unit – PACU, otherwise known as the Recovery Room – and realizing that the ice pack and cold soda cans weren’t do a thing, and that the pain was getting worse, not better, I admitted to myself that I was being really stupid, because the only way I was going to know if I had broken any part of my ankles or feet would be courtesy of an examination in the ER….

…where I discovered, that regardless of whether or not my bones were broken, I wouldn’t be going anywhere. I wouldn’t be getting on any plane in less than 48 hours…

…because the second worse thing happened on that fucked-up miserable day:

My driver’s license wasn’t in my wallet!

Where the fuck was it!

Shit! Shit! Shit!

By the time I was admitted and seen (by a fabulous, young, handsome physician) and told that I wouldn’t need X-rays, that I just had majorly “soft tissue damage” to my ankles and feet, i.e, really bad sprains, and was discharged with the usual instructions about ice and heat and elevate and to “try to walk normally so nothing stiffens up,” all I could think about was oh my fucking god how the hell am I gonna get on the airplane for the wedding?

I was desperate. No, I was beyond desperate; I was a madwoman.

That afternoon I tore the house apart looking for my license. Then I called the New Jersey Division of Motor Vehicles; hell, I even went there – I swallowed three Advils before leaving the house – and, yes, I was trying to “walk normally so nothing stiffens up.” I brought everything I could think of to identify myself, including the driver’s license renewal form I had just received in the mail and my passport – which expired four years ago and of which the DMV informed me that the cut-off date for expired passports as identification is three years – and for my troubles the bitch at the DMV sneered after explaining my situation to her: “Well, I guess you’re just shit of luck.”

I should have reported her. But I was tired, my feet and ankles were really, really hurting me despite the Advils, so I just left.

Aside: Will someone please explain to me why the New Jersey DMV cannot simply look up your credentials via computer, including your picture, especially when you’re 61 and have been a licensed driver since the age of 17? Will someone please explain to my why the New Jersey DMV sends renewal forms – generated by computer – to licensed drivers but still requires six million forms of ID when you go to renew your license?

Aside continued: Especially when, after getting home and calling the Department of Homeland Security and finding out that yes, I should be able get on the plane even though I had lost my driver’s license because they could, by searching the system – looking up on their computers – identify Mindy Newell as a born and bred citizen of the United States with no stains on her record and not on any “No-Fly” list. And by the way, the person I spoke to at the DHS was really nice – she didn’t say, “Well, I guess you’re just shit of luck.”

Still, I was worried about my driver’s license. My writer’s imagination took over. What if someone had stolen it out of my wallet, and what if that someone was a terrorist/jihadist, and what if he or she used my driver’s license for some nefarious and horrible deed? Yeah, I went straight to that – never mind using my license to get into my bank accounts and screwing up my credit and finances.

I finally laid down and elevated my feet and put one of those gel ice packs on my ankles; I also lit a candle, and this nice Jewish girl said a prayer to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things and lost causes. (I asked him to help me even though I’m Jewish, “because your boss was.”) And I threw in some Wiccan blessings, too.

Well, let me tell you, this Jewess’s prayers were answered.

Though not right away.

By Thursday my feet and ankles were black and blue and swollen, but by walking carefully (though “normally”) I could get around okay. Though more than once I stepped the wrong way and OWWWWWW! But still no license. I was very depressed and worried; called ye old editor Mike for some cheering up and a pep talk. It helped…some. (No offense to Mike.)

Thursday night. No license. I had just sent off the column you read two weeks ago. Then I noticed my checkbook, lying on the radiator cover that is next to my computer. What was it doing there? I picked it up. And something – or someone? St. Anthony? – made me open it.

There it was.

My driver’s license.

I don’t know how the hell it ended up inside my checkbook.

“Hey, St. Anthony,” I said. “It’s me again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

On Friday the only trouble I had at the airport was lagging way behind Alix, Jeff, and my grandson as we walked to the gate. Oh, and security did check my ace bandages for, I guess, any hidden weapons. They didn’t make me unwrap them; just ran a metal detector or something over them. So while so many of you were fulfilling your dream of attending the San Diego Comic-Con two weeks ago, I was in Indianapolis, that fair city, at the wedding of Delightful Devin and Marvelous Maria (as Stan would say), and telling everyone was a great guy good ol’ St. Anthony is.

Or maybe it was the Wiccan blessings?

 

•     •     •     •     •

And to bring this back to comics…I read Ed Catto’s column (She Made Me Do It! Fangirls Lead The Way at San Diego!) with interest and delight. It’s so gratifying to know that women are standing up and proudly proclaiming their fangirl status and being noticed and appreciated.

Back in the dark ages (the ‘80s) when I first became a professional writer at DC, I was so innocent of the “old boys club” in the comics world that I had no idea that it was considered weird for a woman to love comics and/or to write them. Besides, there was my editor, Karen Berger, our own Martha Thomases, and so many other women at DC; and over at Marvel there was Louise Simonson and Jo Duffy and Bobby Chase, just to mention three. So I walked around the halls of DC for a very, very long time before it dawned on me that I was “unusual” in any way – to me it was just about loving the medium, it had nothing to do with gender. And when I went to conventions, I met plenty of professional women creators: Kim Yale, Joyce Brabner, Colleen Doran, Jan Dursema, Trina Robbins, Jill Thompson, Wendy Pini, and so many others.

You want to know how innocent I was? When people – especially younger women–tell me that I was a “glass ceiling” breaker, or that I was an inspiration to them, I used to say “I was?” And not in any make-believe false modesty, either. I just didn’t get it.

Now I do.

But if I was, so then also were all the above and all the women who have worked in comics and newspaper strips and graphic novels and all “sequential storytelling and art” since the industry began.

Brava!

 

Ed Catto: The Retail Panel That Started 35 Years Ago

maxwells-1641224 Another one of the panels I moderated at San Diego Comic-Con was called “The 7 Comic Shop Archetypes.” “Who Will Triumph, Thrive and Survive?” was the admittedly over-the-top subheading. The purpose of this B2B panel was to explore the business aspects of this retail outlet that serves as both the sentry guard and encouraging ambassador for the exploding world of Pop Culture. In many ways, comic shops are on the frontier of one-to-one customer service for many communities and customers.

img_2923-5011949I was excited to start this panel on that Saturday of SDCC, but I think it really started way back in the ‘70s. I clearly remember that point where I had graduated to buying my own comics each week. Before that, my dad had bought me a comic each Sunday after our traditional Italian Pasta Dinner. He’s a very generous guy, and sometimes still buys me comics. Now I had reached a point where I was really into purchasing comics myself with money I earned. Imagining myself as a “world’s greatest detective type,” I took great pride in discerning the shipping schedules for all the comics.

I learned that Thursday was the day they’d rack the new comics. And then I decrypted the Marvel monthly schedule. The Avengers always showed up on the first week of the month, then Captain America and Thor the second week, Spider-Man was the third week and Fantastic Four was always the last week of the month. This was well before the Diamond Previews catalog existed, and I was still a couple of years away from discovering fanzines like The Comic Reader.

So each Thursday I’d ride my bike down to Maxwell’s Food Store at Five Points in Auburn, NY. In typical upstate New York fashion, this was a wonky place where five roads intersected. Maxwell’s, a family owned store, was a kind of “prototype 7-11” style convenience store. When I was there, the stock boy always lurked about, suspicious that I would steal comics. After a while I tolerated that. But I never got used to the “aren’t you a little old for those funny books?” stare from them all. Thankfully, I think that’s stigma’s finally been erased for today’s comic buyers.

One day, on my way home, with my stack of new comics, I saw an incredible sight. Right next to the local barbershop, a man and a woman were moving boxes into the tiny storefront. (We never got our hair cut there – he wasn’t Italian). And they had a sign out front: Kim’s Collectible Comics and Records.

Wow!

I was jumping outta my skin. I introduced myself and pestered them, anxious to go into their store. But they just weren’t ready and explained they were opening the next day. They gave me the “come back tomorrow” line, and I sure did.

The next morning, I was there waiting for them to open up…. and, as you can guess, I went back again and again.

Since then, I’ve always had the good fortune of having a great local comic shop in all the places I’ve lived:

  • Comics For Collectors in Ithaca
  • Million Year Picnic, New England Comics and Newbury Comics in Boston
  • Chapel Hill Comics when I was doing my graduation work at UNC (“Go ‘Heels! Dook sucks!”)
  • Joker’s Child when we settled down in New Jersey
  • Midtown Comics & Jim Hanley’s Universe were perfect for a weekday visit when I commuted into NYC

And now I’m lucky that I can always rationalize a comic shop trip when I’m traveling.

Comic Shops are an important lynchpin for Pop Culture. They also represent a vanishing breed of community-based retailer. Most of us no longer have a neighborhood butcher, a neighborhood vacuum-cleaner-repairman or a neighborhood bartender. Even the person who does your hair probably doesn’t have an exclusive relationship with you. Some of us are lucky enough to have independent, neighborhood bookstores, but not many.

But to many consumers, comic shops are the place where they can find a friendly advisor as they walk down the perilous path of pop culture. And at the same time, they provide a real world “water cooler” opportunity to speak face-to-face with someone passionate and knowledgeable.

Last year at this time, Business Insider proclaimed, “The Comic Book Industry is On Fire, and it’s not just the movies.” Reporter Gus Luben talked about the increase in graphic novels and comics and about the perfect storm of media exposure and conventions. They projected the sales of just comics and GNs at $870 Million at that time. As you’ve been seeing if you’ve been paying attention, that’s all just increased and intensified in 2015.

In my job, as I help connect brands with pop culture in authentic ways, I know that more companies and marketing agencies take geek culture more seriously. Smart marketers understand how important comics shops can be in developing those conversations and relationships. You didn’t have to attend my SDCC panel to understand that.

 

John Ostrander: VOX

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As part of the Kickstarter campaign for Tom Mandrake’s and my new project, Kros: Hallowed Ground (which, by the way, is still going on at x.co/kickkros), I’ve done a number of podcast interviews, which have been fun, and I always try to listen to them. I want to get an idea of how Tom and I sound to the fans who might be listening. However, my voice always surprises me. It’s not how I hear myself. I’m told this is the same situation for many people. How you sound to others is not how you hear yourself.

The same has proven true in my writing. Every writer develops a “voice” – a style, a way of expressing oneself that is unique to the individual writer. If authentic, it will reflect your views, your values, how you think, how you feel, how you react to the world around you and so much more.

Can you imitate someone else’s voice? Of course you can just as all the Elvis imitators out there try to channel Elvis Presley. It’s a whole industry. Within that industry are variations and nuances as each imitator tries to develop their own “voice” as Elvis.

In addition to all your own experiences you add the influences that work on you. What you read, what you see, the music that you hear and so on. One of the ways you develop your voice is by imitating the works that have made an impression on you. You take a bit from here, a touch from there and gradually it becomes how you express yourself. Imitation is certainly permissible at the beginning but, to be a good writer, you must develop beyond that. You take what you learn and make it your own.

The first time I came to the halls of DC comics, I met several editors including Dan Raspler who would later become the first editor on Tom Mandrake’s and my version of The Spectre. Dan did a double take when he saw me and confessed he was startled. He was a big fan of my work on GrimJack and, from my writing, he thought I’d be a big burly and surly young biker type. Instead, he got a genial, balding, pudgy white guy edging into middle-age. I’ve been told I’m very personable and pretty easy to get along with. Some editors have said that if you can’t collaborate with me, you can’t collaborate with anyone. I don’t think that’s how my stories read and that surprises me as well. Dan was right; I write like a surly biker. My work is often cynical, with a dark sense of humor, and I love conflicted characters. I prefer villains to heroes. That’s not who I am in life but it is how I am on paper. And, yes, that sometimes surprises me.

So if you meet me at a convention, come up and say hello. I don’t bite. (Hard.) I’m not that guy you’ve encountered on the pages I’ve written. Overall, I’m pretty nice.

Just don’t cross me.

Kidding.

 

 

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