Category: News

Lunacon 2009 will be taking place this coming weekend, March 20-22, at the Hilton Rye Town in Rye Brook, New York.

Pre-registration is closed and the hotel is already sold out, but it’s still looking like it’ll be a great show. ComicMix contributors Bob Greenberger, Jean Krevor, Amy Goldschlager, Kim Kindya, Alexandra Honigsberg, Dennis McCunney, Aaron Rosenberg, Jenifer Rosenberg, Andrew Wheeler, and yours truly are all program participants, along with guests of honor Dave Freer, Larry Dixon, Mercedes Lackey, and Eric Flint.

We hope to see you there.

Oh, and yes– Wally Wood did the logo for the convention. Ain’t that neat?

Mark Ryan will join former Robin of Sherwood mate Jason Connery at CUT! Film Festival 2009 for a screening to celebrate the show’s 25th Anniversary and a discussion about the show’s loyal fan base. Ryan will also sit on a Comics panel with Mike Grell, with whom he partnered to create The Pilgrim. CUT! Film Festival 2009 is a benefit and celebration of cinema dedicated to the art and imagination that goes into the creation of film. This year’s event takes place the weekend of March 14-15, 2009 at the historic Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, CA.

WHEN: March 14, 2009:
· 11:20 am – “Comics and the Impact On Film Today” – Mike Grell, Steve Niles, Mark Ryan, Daniel Vest
· 6:45 pm – Celebrating “Robin of Sherwood” 25th Anniversary with Mark Ryan, Jason Connery & other guests TBA – Screening of episode: Sheriff of Nottingham plus a charity auction.

“Robin of Sherwood” has enjoyed a loyal fan base that keeps the show alive via web groups, fan clubs and conventions both in America and the U.K. Mark, of course, has had a successful career since his days as a merry man, including voicing Bumblebee in the box office hit, “Transformers” and partnering with legendary illustrator, Mike Grell to create The Pilgrim graphic novel. Ryan recently launched a musical project nearly 20 years in the making, based on Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights,” which he plans to bring to the big screen soon and is currently available on iTunes. He has also signed on with Mighty Finn Productions for 3 upcoming projects including “Robbing Bingo,” which will reunite Ryan with Sherwood cast mate, Ray Winstone (Beowulf.) Ryan will pull triple duty on the film as Associate Producer, Actor & Action Coordinator.

Kristen Bell may be about to learn how the extreme always seems to make an impression– by possibly starring in the musical adaptation of the darkly beloved 1988 cult classic Heathers, according to Eonline.

Kevin Murphy and Andy Fickman, part of the team behind the stage and teleplay edition of Reefer Madness is manning the film’s under-the-radar transition to the stage, with readings of the material taking place this week. Bell is taking the Winona Ryder-originated role of Veronica in the rehearsals, with her Reefer Madness co-star Christian Campbell playing Christian Slater’s role of J.D., according to the Hollywood Reporter.

While the actors aren’t locks to go with their characters when the show makes its Broadway debut, they are likely candidates to keep their gigs if they’re available.

And just to tie it back yet again to comics, did you know that Daniel Waters, the writer of Heathers, also wrote the screenplay for Batman Returns? Small world.

Boy, is this week’s episode going to make Mike Gold happy…

In this week’s episode airing on Cartoon Network at 8:00 PM  titled “Mystery in Space!”, Aquaman joins Batman in a thrilling space adventure on Adam Strange’s home planet of Rann.  There our heroes join forces to battle Gordanian General Kreegaar and his reptilian horde. It’s the power of justice and a good old fashioned fight that resurrects Aquaman’s heroism as he leads the team to on a mission to destroy the Eye of Zared!
 
And this week’s teaser gives you a first look at the villainous Equinox and introduces the Question. Take a look…

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Poor Princess Ruruna is stressed out. With the king and queen away, she has to manage the Kingdom of Kod’s humongous fruit-selling empire. Overseas departments, scads of inventory, conflicting prices, and so many customers! It’s all such a confusing mess. But a mysterious book and a helpful fairy promise to solve her organizational problems—with the practical magic of databases!

Yes, The Manga Guide To Databases. Personally, as long as Bill Gates doesn’t use that fairy like he did Einstein and Clippy, I’m cool with it. In fact, there are some people here I should beat over the head with it lend it to.

You’ve probably heard the schoolyard snap: "Yo’mama’s so dumb she failed a Rorschach test." I never thought I’d find a case where it’s actually true, but lo and behold, Arne Starr pointed me to one.

Perhaps you know the old joke: A man goes to a psychologist and says, "Doc, I got a real problem… I can’t stop thinking about sex."

The psychologist says, "Well let’s see what we can find out", and pulls out his ink blots. "What is this a picture of?"

The man looks the picture upside down then turns it around and states, "That’s a man and a woman on a bed making love."

"Uh-huh. And what is this a picture of?"

"Well, that’s a man and a woman on a bicycle making love."

The psychologist tries again with the third ink blot. "What is this a picture of?"

"Obviously, that’s a man and a woman in a volcano making love."

The psychologist states, "Well, yes, you do seem to be obsessed with sex."

"Me? Doctor, you’re the one who keeps showing me the dirty pictures!"

Which brings us to Debbie Schlussel. Debbie is a conservative activist and occassional movie critic and she thinks that if you see Watchmen, you’re "probably a moron and a vapid, indecent human being."

She spends the first half of her review saying that the movie isn’t for children (no "kidding", Debbie, that’s why it has an R rating) and bemoans the fact that "plenty of clueless parents brought their young kids and kept them there for the entire almost three hour "experience" at the screening I attended". Now, her article went up on March 4th, so the only way that she could have seen it would have been at some sort of industry screening or press event. I’ve been to a few of them in my day, and I never remember children being present at such events.

She also decries the amounts of sex, violence, brutality, bad language, and other things that make her feel icky.

But most amazingly, she claims to be a great conservative thinker, and yet somehow never connects with the core question of the film. And that core question is this:

How far will you go to save your world?

It’s really a simple question, but it has very complicated answers.

Would you kill a child molester who fed his victim to his dogs? Obvious sexual deviancy, right? What about killing lesbians, then?

Would you break into prison to release a criminal? What if you knew he wasn’t a criminal, but couldn’t prove it?

Would you shoot police officers who were getting in your way of saving the world? How about if they were just preventing you from beating up on crooks?

Would you lie to bring down a presidential candidate, perhaps by accusing him of being a Muslim (like that’s bad in and of itself) in order to save the country? In Debbie’s case, we already know her answer to that question, character assassination is okay— so how about assassinating the President outright? Is that cool? Or assassinating reporters who might bring government misdeeds to light?

Would you kill a person to protect the world? How about killing someone in self-defense?

How about more than one person? How about three? Thirty? Three thousand? Three hundred thousand? Three million people? How many people is it okay to kill in order to protect the world? Would you fly a plane into a building? Would you invade a country? Would you nuke a city?

Who appoints themselves to make these decisions? And who watches over them?

All of these are valid questions brought up, implicitly or explicitly, in Watchmen. And if Ms. Schlussel was a deep thinker, or had any self-awareness at all, some of those questions might occur to her.

But Ms. Schlussel, sadly, can’t see any of that.

All she sees… are dirty pictures.

One more note: Ms. Schlussel goes way overboard in a follow up piece, complete with a Godwin’s Law violation:

Poor Hitler. If only he’d made Mein Kampf into a comic book instead of an actual written screed. Then, the ovens of Auschwitz and the human lampshades would be all the rage and cool of kitsch.

As it happens, I happen to have Hitler’s thoughts on the matter:

A while back, there was a spate of Marvel characters that were having their stories retold for different countries, for example Spider-Man India, with Pavitr Prabhakar, his uncle Bhim and aunt Maya. Now Nikki Finke tells us that Marvel may be doing the same for their movies:

Marvel Entertainment announced today that it’s forming an "International Advisory Board" comprised of business leaders from key international growth markets to work with Marvel executives to explore opportunities for expanding the penetration of the key character brands in international markets. The Advisory Board is chaired by James Halpin, a Marvel director since March 1995; Peter Yip, Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of China’s CDC Corporation; and Bollywood film producer Manmohan Shetty, former chairman of India’s Adlabs Films. Marvel is in the process of filling two additional Advisory Board positions. Simon Philips, Marvel’s prez of Worldwide Consumer Products will serve as the primary company liaison to the Advisory Board.

Hey, if it worked for Spider-Man in Japan… although you can make that decision for yourself, Marvel is now streaming those episodes.