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Molly Jackson: My Favorite Comic You’ve Never Read

savior-28-image-7223880This week I attended Big Apple Con, another small con in the big city of New York. While I was there I got to bug Papercutz editor-in-chief Jim Salicrup once more about a book I recommended that he still hasn’t read yet. In fact, it’s my favorite superhero comic. And I’m betting you’ve never heard of it.

My favorite comic is The Life and Times of Savior 28 written by J.M. DeMatteis and art by Mike Cavallaro. It was published by IDW Publishing oh so long ago in 2009. I remember seeing the ad for it in another comic and the art really caught my eye. Not just for the style or skill (which is fantastic in its execution), but the brutal, raw story captured in one panel. It just drew me in and I knew I had to read it.

The hero Savior 28 is like the “Superman” of DeMatteis’ realistic earth. The story shows how much the human spirit can handle and how one good man can be crushed by sadness. We start the comic at our hero’s final moment and relive his life through the words of his former sidekick. We watch Savior 28 battle evil from every turn and how he tries to cope with what he sees, not just in evil doers, but in everyday people.

Savior 28 is definitely inspired by DC Comics characters like Superman and Batman, but also pulls from Watchmen. The manipulation of the heroes as well as the government is similar in comparison. Additionally, see the two things that make the book’s impact so strong. One is the real events playing a role. The second is the slow fall from grace of our main character. After seeing so much horror, how hard does a hero have to fight for his own inner peace?

I’ve honestly declared myself the book’s defacto PR person, even if it is just me pushing it to one person at a time. I “took over” a Cavallaro comic signing just to promote it to the crowd. It’s ok though; I ended up selling the store’s only copy for them. Everyone has their favorite work and loves to talk about it with other fans. I’m just making sure I have other people to talk about it with!

I want to go into more details about the book and Savior 28’s character but I would rather you read his journey. It’s a fantastic book that I love so much, so please go check out The Life and Times of Savior 28. You won’t regret it.

Live-action Harlock: Space Pirate Coming March 31

HarlockSP_3DLOS ANGELES, CA – Director Shinji Aramaki (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Halo Legends, Appleseed Saga: Ex Machina) unleashes an interstellar thrill ride with Harlock: Space Pirate on Digital HD, On Demand and DVD from Ketchup Entertainment! Based on the classic comic book and TV series, this live action family adventure stars David Matranga (Appleseed, Journey to Agatha), Emily Neves (Starship Troopers: Invasion, Journey to Agatha), and Rob Mungle (Blue Seed, Lady Death).

A mysterious space pirate of the future, Captain Harlock, is determined to return his death ship and loyal crew to a battered Earth, which has been declared off-limits by the intergalactic Gaia Coalition. The rogue captain comes up with an incredible plan to go back in time to rescue Earth, but that includes the destruction of everything, as it exists. A young soldier of the Gaia Coalition volunteers to go undercover on the infamous skull ship and assassinate Harlock, but he soon discovers things are not as they seem. As dark secrets of the past are uncovered, the fate of the entire universe teeters on a very thin edge.

Rating: Not Rated
Total Runtime: 111 minutes
S.R.P: $20.99
Video: 2:39: 1 aspect ratio
Audio: English 5.1 and 2.0 audio/Japanese 5.1 audio

Special Features:

  • Includes the Original Japanese version

John Ostrander: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

Jake Gittes: How much are you worth?

Noah Cross: I have no idea. How much do you want?

Jake Gittes: I just wanna know what you’re worth. More than 10 million?

Noah Cross: Oh my, yes!

Jake Gittes: Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What could you buy that you can’t already afford?

Noah Cross: The future, Mr. Gittes! The future. Now, where’s the girl? I want the only daughter I’ve got left. As you found out, Evelyn was lost to me a long time ago.

Jake Gittes: Who do you blame for that? Her?

Noah Cross: I don’t blame myself. You see, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they’re capable of anything.

Chinatown. Robert Towne, script. Roman Polanski, director.

Chinatown is a masterpiece, winding up on so many “Best of” compilations that I can’t list them all; it’s on mine as well. It also has one of the best soundtracks (by the inestimable Jerry Goldsmith) I’ve heard.

The quoted section at the head of this column has been much in my mind lately. Gittes’ question (“Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What could you buy that you can’t already afford?”) is one I’d like to put to the Koch Brothers and lots of others in the über-rich percentile, except I think all I’d get would be variations on Noah Cross’s reply (“The future, Mr. Gittes! The future.”) Wealth at some point is no longer about riches; it’s about control.

I’m not anti-rich; I think its swell that some people have managed to make a lot of money. I wish I had, and who doesn’t?. My problem is how that money is sometimes used – primarily in the use of buying the government. Late in Chinatown, Faye Dunaway’s character, Evelyn Mulwray, is in a stand-off with her father, Noah Cross, and the police. Gittes, who has been trying to help her, yells for her to let the police handle it. She yells back, “He owns the police!” And there’s my problem right there.

In 2016, the right wing Koch brothers intend to spend $889 million on the elections. The Kochs are the second richest family in the country (the Waltons of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club are the richest) and are worth billions. They’ll hardly miss the millions. Mitt Romney famously observed that “corporations are people, too”. I’ll buy that when Texas executes a corporation. The Supreme Court in the Citizens United misruling declared that money equaled free speech. Lots of money equals shouting and drowning everyone else out.

In 1980, David Koch ran as the vice-presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party on a platform that included abolishing Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, the Post Office (in favor of privatized delivery services), all personal and corporate taxes, minimum wage laws, compulsory education laws, the FDA, the FCC, OSHA and on and on. You can read it here, among other places. What was radically fringe thinking back in 1980 is becoming mainstream Republican policy.

Gittes, late in the movie, is trying to convince a detective that Noah Cross is doing terrible things. Gittes: “He’s rich! Do you understand? He thinks he can get away with anything.” So do the Koch Brothers and they’re right. They have and they will. Fine them and they consider it part of the cost of doing business. They have a vision for America that scares me; it’s not a country I would recognize or want to live in.

Minor spoiler alert. The movie doesn’t end well. Someone gets killed who shouldn’t have been, the bad guy wins everything he’s after, and the hero just stands there in shock. My feeling is that it’ll be much of the same for this country and I don’t know what can be done about it.

It’s all Chinatown.

 

Entourage Box Sets to Include Movie Certificate for Feature Film

entourage-e1425762223859-3535448This summer, Vince and the boys are back in the hotly anticipated Entourage movie. Fans of the hit HBO series quickly learned that in the world of Hollywood, it’s all about exclusivity and being in-the-know. Fortunately, HBO is making it easier than ever to catch up on the series and gain exclusive access to a movie certificate for the film through a partnership with Fandango. Starting May 12, 2015, all eight original seasons of Entourage, as well as the  Entourage: The Complete Series box set, will include an exclusive certificate offer granting fans money to spend toward their ticket to see Entourage, in theaters June 5, 2015. It’s the perfect way to get caught up on the series in anticipation of the big screen release this summer.

  • Individual box sets for seasons 1-8 will include an offer for up to $8 off one movie ticket to see Entourage. The offer will be valid across all participating retailers on both Blu-rayTM (SRP $29.97) and DVD (SRP $24.98).
  • Entourage: The Complete Series on DVD ($199) will include an offer for up to $25 off three movie tickets to see Entourage, giving fans a chance to bring their whole entourage to the movie with them. The offer will also be valid across all participating retailers.
  • Exclusively at Best Buy, Entourage: The Complete Series on Blu-ray ($289.92) will also include an offer for up to $25 off three movie tickets to see Entourage.
  • The offer is valid at participating theaters in the US only and expires August 5, 2015*.

*Movie certificate is good towards either 1 admission (up to $8.00 total value) or towards 3 admissions (up to $25.00 total value) to see Entourage at participating theaters in the U.S. Reward code void if not activated by 8/5/2015 and certificate void if not used by 8/5/2015. Not for resale; void if sold or exchanged. Movie certificate is powered by Fandango Loyalty Solutions, LLC. ©2015 Fandango Loyalty Solutions, LLC. All Rights Reserved. See www.activaterewards.com/entourage for full details.

About  Entourage:

Created and executive produced by Doug Ellin and loosely based on the experiences of his good friend, Academy Award® nominee Mark Wahlberg (who’s among the series’ executive producers), Entourage takes a none-too-serious look at the day-to-day life of Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), a hot young Hollywood actor, and the inner circle of friends he’s brought from his hometown in Queens, NY: manager Eric (Kevin Connolly), half-brother/actor Drama (Kevin Dillon) and enterprising pal Turtle (Jerry Ferrara).  The series also stars Jeremy Piven who garnered three Emmy®Awards and a Golden Globe®for his portrayal as Vince’s agent Ari Gold, Rex Lee as Lloyd and Perry Reeves as the long-suffering Mrs. Ari. Returning guest stars include Scott Caan as Scott Lavin, Emmanuelle Chriqui as Sloan, Beverly D’Angelo as Ari’s business partner Babs and Debi Mazar as Vince’s publicist Shauna.  Along with Ellin and Wahlberg, the series is executive produced by Stephen Levinson, Denis Biggs, Ally Musika and Rob Weiss.

The much-anticipated big-screen version of the award-winning hit HBO series reunites the show’s original cast, led by Kevin Connolly, Adrian Grenier, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara and Jeremy Piven. Movie star Vincent Chase (Grenier), together with his boys, Eric (Connolly), Turtle (Ferrara) and Johnny (Dillon), are back…and back in business with super agent-turned-studio head Ari Gold (Piven).  Some of their ambitions have changed, but the bond between them remains strong as they navigate the capricious and often cutthroat world of Hollywood.

Entourage creator Doug Ellin is directing the feature film from his own screenplay, story by Ellin & Rob Weiss, based on characters created by Ellin.  Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson and Ellin are producing, with Wayne Carmona serving as executive producer.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Home Box Office, a Closest to the Hole Production, a Leverage Entertainment Production, a Doug Ellin Film, Entourage.  The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.  The film is set to open in theaters on June 5, 2015.

 

Entourage has been rated R by the MPAA for pervasive language, strong sexual content, nudity and some drug use.

Longmire Season 3 Now on DIsc

longmire-e1425650705748-5995896The wonderfully underrated Longmire completed its third season last year and was then canceled by A&E for reasons beyond understanding. After some protracted negotiations amidst a fury of wronged fans taking to social media to save the series, Netflix announced they have picked up the series for a fourth season to air later this year.

BURBANK, CA (February 23, 2015) – The stunning skies of Wyoming, and the mysteries beneath them, have never been more enthralling than in the unfolding episodes of Longmire, the popular A&E-turned-Netflix television series.  Those cinematic visuals and intense situations have also never looked better than in the full 1080p HD presentation of Warner Archive Collection’s Blu-ray™ release of Longmire, Season 3, available now via your favorite online retailers.

Warner Archive Collection’s release of Longmire, Season 3 on Blu-ray™ includes all 10 episodes in a three-disc set, as well a documentary entitled “The Ghost in the Storm,” which focuses on the obsessions many of the Longmire characters encounter during the series’ captivating third season.

In this riveting third season, Sheriff Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor) is reeling from a series of devastating traumas. Best friend Henry (Lou Diamond Phillips) is going to prison on murder charges. His deputy, Branch (Bailey Chase), has been shot by a mysterious “white warrior.” And Walt‘s right-hand deputy, Vic (Katee Sackhoff), may not have shaken off a stalker from her past. While Walt shoulders these burdens, his daughter Cady (Cassidy Freeman) fights in court to clear Henry’s name, and The Ferg (Adam Bartley) holds down the fort behind the scenes as threats to the lawmen come from all directions. Absaroka County’s dark secrets run deeper than Walt imagined, and the closer he gets to uncovering the true bloody hand behind his wife’s murder, the more he realizes that connections and corruptions may ensnare them all.

In addition to the cast regulars, Longmire, Season 3 has featured guest performances from such notable actors as Peter Weller (Robocop), Gerald McRaney (House of Cards, Simon & Simon), A Martinez (L.A. Law, One Life To Live, Santa Barbara), Charles Dutton (Roc, Alien3), Graham Greene, (Dances With Wolves, Die Hard with a Vengeance), Irene Bedard (Pocahontas), Michael Mosley (Sirens), Derek Phillips (42, Friday Night Lights), Lee Tergesen (Oz), Madchen Amick (Twin Peaks), Parker Stevenson (The Hardy Boys, Baywatch) and Peter Stormare (Fargo, The Big Lebowski). Weller also directed the episode, “Wanted Man,” in which he guest stars.

Marc Alan Fishman: Iron Man Invented Ultron!

Did you see it? Did ya did ya did ya? The latest trailer to the future billion-dollar-blockbuster-to-be <a href=”

Avengers 2: Age of Ultron didn’t dance around the revisionist history of the cinematic 616. Ultron, once the product of Dr. Hank Pym – of Ant Man fame, don’t you know – has been shifted to the fatherly arms of one Tony Stark.

Now, the movie isn’t out yet, and I’ve abstained for seeking any real spoilers (that the trailer didn’t spoil itself). For all I know, Tony “invented” it the same way Microsoft invented the Zune. But, let’s just assume that in the world of Joss Whedon’s Marvelverse, Tony Stark did as he said: he attempted to create a solution to the ails of the world… and in doing so, created a would-be destructor instead. Simply put, this is a brilliant move by the boardroom of Mickey Mouse. Old school fans be damned.

An old adage I was taught in screenwriting class was that “you don’t put a gun on the table if you don’t plan on firing it.” The idea being that storytelling in a restricted amount of time (like a 150 minute movie) means sometimes having to consolidate resources. And while I’m sure I could have my ear talked off by someone older than me on the rich history of Pym’s creation of the aforementioned villain, it’d fall on deaf ears. The biggest reason: the story thus far in the Marvel movies has wonderfully built to this outcome.

Take a trip through Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Avengers, and Iron Man 3. The genesis to the Marvel Studios empire was built on the back of Anthony Stark: war-monger, philanthropist, martyr. It makes complete sense coming out of Avengers and Iron Man 3 that Tony would feel compelled to create a machine to solve the world’s problems. And it’d make even more sense he’d imbue it with a bit of his own panache. Any decent scientist will tell you the man who could invent Jarvis as presented is more than capable of creating the AI that wants to end humanity in order to save it. No one builds a monologuing AI better than Tony “Poke the Hulk in the Tuccus” Stark.

What I love even more than the choice to saddle Tony with the idea for Ultron is the potential stories that spin out of it. Akin to Grant Morrison’s astounding Tower of Babel arc in JLA, here the biggest threat to the Avengers (and the world at large) isn’t the rampaging id, alien demi-god, or right-wing cyclops… it’s the narcissist futurist. And given the name drop of Captain America: Civil War and the leaked stories of Tony’s appearance in it, it doesn’t take much brain power to see that Captain America may end up opposite his teammate over something as trivial as potentially almost ending the world. Plus, Tony also sorta created Whiplash and a fire-breathing Guy Pearce. If that’s not enough to go to war, then I don’t know my politics.

Beyond Cap there’s potential steam to be blown off by countless others. And what of Tony’s Science Bro, Dr. Banner? Maybe he’ll be more sympathetic to a man trying to quell the beasts of the world and messing up. And what of Black Widow or Hawkeye? One would imagine they aren’t ones to choose sides quickly. And then there is S.H.I.E.L.D. and all of that potential mess.

Whedon’s recent interviews have all beleaguered the point that with this sequel the story is decidedly more insular than the previous iteration. Avengers pretty much charged out of the gate swinging, and there was hardly time for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to fraternize. Those critics devoid of our fanboy hearts saw the coming together of the menagerie of complex costume choices as being inherently explosive.

In simpler terms, put that many type-A personalities on one giant flying fortress and you were bound to have an alien invasion and the near destruction of New York City. Of course we’d all beg to differ, but the outsiders have a point. And it all comes back to Tony.

At the end of Iron Man we were introduced to the concept of the superteam – a­­nd the tin man was clearly at the core of it. When Tony stepped on the Triskelion, he treated it as if he owned it. And after he illegally downloaded all the secret files within, in a way he did. And he was quick to reveal to his fellow Avengers how secretive and potentially damning their would-be employers were. Forever the smartest man in the world… doomed to see his biggest ideas twisted into death and destruction. Tony Stark is karma’s bitch.

And Avengers 2 will be amazing because of it.

 

The Point Radio: DIG & THE RETURNED More Must See TV

Two more additions to your TV Must See list should be the USA multi-part event, DIG and the much anticipated remake of the acclaimed French thriller, THE RETURNED on A&E. We talk to the producers and cast of DIG about how they grew their story, then actor Mark Pellegrino explains why all it took was Carlton Cuse to get him onboard for THE RETURNED.

BATES MOTEL opens up for season three in a few days, and Main Mama, Vera Farmiga, tells us just how far the show will go this time – right here in just a few days.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Shout! TV Adds Stingray, Kentucky Fried Movie, & The Goode Family

stingray-e1425650569201-5558149Shout! Factory TV, now in its second month, has added three more properties to their growing library of streaming content. These include Gerry Anderson’s Stingray, the Supermarionation series from the mid-1960s, the animated Goode Family, and the 1970s comedy Kentucky Fried Movie.

Shout! Factory TV is a premiere digital entertainment streaming service that brings timeless and contemporary cult favorites to pop culture fans. With a uniquely curated entertainment library, the channel offers an unrivaled blend of cult TV shows, movies, comedy, original specials and more – presenting an exciting entertainment alternative to other services.

Shout! Factory TV is available through any browser and has a Roku app.

THE GOODE FAMILY (All 13 episodes)

The Goode Family, from executive producers Mike Judge (King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-head, Office Space) and John Altschuler & Dave Krinsky (King of the Hill, Blades of Glory), comes to Shout! Factory TV this March.

A hilarious skewering of our better natures, The Goode Family stars Mike Judge, Nancy Carell (The Office), Linda Cardellini (Freaks And Geeks) and Brian Doyle-Murray (Get A Life) with special guest stars Kevin Nealon, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Richter, Johnny Knoxville, Laraine Newman, Julia Sweeney, Elvis Costello, Alyson Hannigan, Dax Shepard and more!

Meet Gerald and Helen Goode, a couple who live by the motto WWAGD (“What Would Al Gore Do?”). Gerald, a college administrator, and Helen, a community activist, are determined to obliterate their carbon footprint on the planet: They’re zealous vegans, they drive a hybrid, and they recycle everything possible. Even the family dog, Che, is vegan. In the words of Helen, all the Goodes want to do is buy organic apples and call minorities by their politically correct names. But despite their best efforts, something always goes haywire with their plans. With standards always changing, no matter how hard you try to be good, it’s virtually impossible these days . . . especially for the Goode family.

Throughout the 13 episodes, the family adopts a bizarre animal named Gutterball, tags a clean park to experience the joy of cleaning up graffiti, take embarrassing pictures of at-risk kids that get them beat up by their gang-banger friends, get in a turf war with an Aryan prison work-gang while doing a highway cleanup, and much, much more.

GERRY ANDERSON’S STINGRAY (featuring 6 hand-picked episodes)

Battle stations! Join the World Aquanaut Security Patrol in a riptide of retro TV when the sci-fi adventure series Stingray is released on Shout! Factory TV.  Created by the television pioneers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (Thunderbirds, Space: 1999), six hand-picked episodes of the Supermarionation classic are coming to the streaming service only for the month of March. Stingray’s appearance on Shout! Factory TV marks the start of a lineup of exciting limited engagements for Gerry Anderson Supermarionation series.

The flagship of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (W.A.S.P.), Stingray is the world’s most highly sophisticated submarine, capable of speeds of over 600 knots and the ability to submerge anywhere on the Earth’s ocean floor. Under the command of the square-jawed and heroic Captain Troy Tempest, Stingray explores the most treacherous depths of our waters and protects the world from the perils that lurk undersea.

KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE (Evan C. Kim, Bong Soo Han, Bill Bixby)

Directed by the legendary John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers), The Kentucky Fried Movie features a lewd, loosely connected collection of skits that spoof blaxploitation films, news shows, TV commercials, kung fu flicks and more!

The original take-off cult classic from the highly successful team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker (Airplane, The Naked Gun), this “uproariously funny [film]” (TV Guide) launched a thousand laughs and serves as a precursor to the raunch-fests of the ‘80s and the blockbuster success of the Farrelly Brothers films.

 

Including well-known stars such as Bill Bixby, Donald Sutherland, Tony Dow, George Lazenby and Henry Gibson, this one-of-a-kind film features over 22 hilarious segments including “Cleopatra Schwartz,” “Catholic High School Girls In Trouble,” “A Fistful Of Yen” and more!

Whether reliving childhood memories or discovering television series, movies and comedy specials for the first time, SHOUT! FACTORY TV will provide an immersive, high-quality viewing experience across a wide variety of screens and platforms, online at ShoutFactoryTV.com and on smartphone devices, tablets and connected TV, with an initial rollout on Roku.

SHOUT! FACTORY TV’s programming leverages a distinctive library of pop culture-defining entertainment curated from Shout! Factory, Westchester Films, Timeless Media Group, Scream Factory, major studios, independent producers and other sources from around the world.

The Law Is A Ass

BOB INGERSOLL: The Law Is A Ass #348: THE THING IS AN ESCAPED CRUSADER

32761dcd7454c1bac073e381ccbf841a_mFirst a show of hands, how many of you think the Puppet Master is dead?

No, I mean really dead. Sure Puppet Master’s always been a second-tier villain. After all, anyone who had access to his radioactive clay and a grade school art class could duplicate his powers. But how many think he’s really never-coming-back-from-the-dead dead?

Probably the same number of people who think that the Thing  really killed him. However, as things sit in Fantastic Four v5 #13, Thing was sitting in Ryker’s Island waiting trial for murdering Puppet Master. Until Thing recruited his own version of the Impossible Mission Force and broke out of prison.

Step One: Thing met with his lawyer, She-Hulk. Step Two: Ant-Man shrank down to subatomic size so he could navigate along the wiring of Ryker’s Island and use a pulse bomb to shut down the cell cubes and power dampeners that Ryker’s used to keep its super-powered inmates under control. Step Three: Sandman used his sand powers to hamper the efforts of any of the other inmates who tried to escape during the power outage. Step Four: Thing and Sandman ran along one of the prison’s supply tunnels to the prison wall. Step Five: She-Hulk and Darla Deering  – who was wearing her Miss Thing exoskeleton – knocked down the wall from the outside, because Thing’s strength hadn’t returned to full power yet. Step Six: They all went outside, where Medusa and the Inhumans waited with an airship which flew them to safety. Thing, why’d you stop there? Six more steps and you could have had an intervention.

The whole operation was a big success, although Sandman wasn’t always sure it would be. Still, he joined anyway. “What’s the worst they can do if it fails? Send me to prison?”

Well, yes, that’s exactly what they can do to you.

Escape is a crime in New York. According to New York Penal Law § 205.15 when a person charged with, or convicted of, a felony escapes from a detention facility that’s escape in the first degree. Thing was charged with murder. Sandman had been convicted of a felony – several, in fact. Both escaped from a detention center. Nuff said? Escape in the first degree is a class D felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

So yes, Sandman, they can they send you to prison. But it’s not the worst they can do.

Most judges’ view on escape is dimmer than a ten-watt bulb. Judges tend to sentence people convicted of escape consecutively to whatever sentence the criminal escaped from. So the worst isn’t that they’ll send you back to prison. The worst is that they’ll send you back to prison for even longer.

And it’s not like She-Hulk, Ant-Man, or Darla Deering would get off scot free. N.Y.P.L. § 115.08 calls helping a person to commit a crime criminal facilitation in the fourth degree. In addition, N.Y.P.L. § 105.05 says a person is guilty of conspiracy in the fifth degree when he or she agrees with one or more persons to engage in a felony.

Okay, both of these crimes are Class A misdemeanors so the possible sentence is anything up to one year. It may not be the seven years Sandman’s facing, but give them one year on each crime, run those sentences consecutively, and that’s two years. That’s more time than Animal Practice got and Animal Practice was a crime against humanity.

(BTW, I left out Medusa and the Inhumans, because they might have diplomatic immunity. I’m not sure what the Inhumans’ diplomatic status is. Just as I’m not sure what the status of their home city Attilan is other than blown up.)

Oh yeah, She-Hulk also joked about getting disbarred for her involvement in the escape. Not a joke, Shulky. Look at what New York did to Matt Murdock. If they catch you, they’ll disbar you, too. Then you can laugh all the way to the bank. The blood bank. Because you’ll be selling your blood to earn grocery money.

Then there’s Thing. Like Sandman, he’d be facing seven years for escape. Unlike Sandman, he wouldn’t have any underlying sentences that his seven years could be stacked on consecutively. But seven years is still a long time. Still, seven years in comic-book time is an eternity.

Which brings up an interesting question. In books, comic books, TV shows and movies, prisoners who are wrongly accused of a crime frequently escape in order to prove their innocence.  Richard Kimble escaped more times than Harry Houdini on tour. And once they prove their innocence, everything is hunky dory. They’re never prosecuted for escape, even though the escape charges would still exist, even if they were actually innocent of the other crime for which they had been arrested.

Do fictional prosecutors feel the innocent people suffered enough by being charged with a crime they didn’t commit so don’t bother charging them with a crime they actually did commit? I say fictional, because I certainly never met find any real-life prosecutors who felt that way back when I was practicing. Those prosecutors tended to press charges.

See, escapees escape from a prison or detention center or police custody. The guards, correction officers and police tend to be embarrassed when escapes occur on their watch. So they try to discourage escape, by making sure prosecutors file escape charges on anyone who escapes. That other detainees won’t get the same idea.

But that’s not how it’s going to happen. The Thing will be exonerated. Then neither he nor any of the people who helped him escape will be prosecuted. And they’ll all live happily ever after.

Except Sandman. Him they’ll prosecute.

Martha Thomases: Is Comics Distribution Sexy?

comic-book-guy-stan-lee-4021265One of the most important but least sexy aspects of the comic book business is distribution. The people who get the comic books from the printer and then send them to your local comic book stores don’t have that aura of imagination we associate with artists and writers. They aren’t publicly literate, like editors and publishers.

(Note: I’m only talking about perceptions here. I know a bunch of people who work in distribution, and they are at least as interesting and varied as any other group of people.)

The first distributors I met were the ones who agreed to take on Comedy Magazine in 1980. The mix included those who specialized in newsstands and those who were more specialty oriented. The specialty mix included not just comic books but also zines and art magazines (we were an art magazine). Some of those became direct market distributors.

Then ten years went by, and I didn’t think about distribution much at all.

When I worked at DC, there were a bunch of direct market distributors. Some were regional. A few were not. They competed against each other. They would pit one publisher against another in an attempt to get more favorable deals. Publishers would do the same to them.

And then, there was only Diamond.

Mimi Cruz, the owner of Night Flight Comics in Salt Lake City, recently wrote an article about how frustrating it is to deal with Diamond. She talks about books that are ordered and never arrive, books that aren’t ordered but show up anyway, books that arrive damaged, and books that are late.

Distributors are only human, and humans make mistakes. We should be understanding of each other. However, one would think that at a time when print media are considered to be endangered species, that maybe self-interest would motivate Diamond to provide better (and therefore more profitable) service. Books that never get on the shelves never get sold. Mistakes that don’t get corrected cost everybody money.

And there is certainly money to be made. Brian Hibbs recently analyzed the most recent data from BookScan, which shows that graphic novel sales have risen more than 17 percent in bookstores. Yes, that’s a category of print media, on paper, with sales growing in the bookstore market. If print isn’t yet dead, that is in no small part due to stories told in pictures.

Savvy comic book stores already order books through book distributors as well as direct market distributors. The discounts may be less attractive, but the books are in stock and, sometimes, returnable if they can’t be sold. If Diamond has a bad week, the store can still get product on the shelves. There will still be new covers to attract attention.

I don’t really have a suggestion (other than, “Everybody! Get your shit together!”). I don’t know that more competition in the direct market would make everyone more efficient. I don’t know if investing in state-of-the-art tech would make a difference. I don’t know if there are things that we, as customers, can do to help.

I just know that when I go to a comic book store, I want to see the new books, and the old books, and books that sit there, quietly, waiting for me to find them.

 

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