Last thoughts on the San Diego Comic-Con:
Adventures in SciFi Publishing has some Comic-Con pictures.
Fantasy Book Critic has a wrap-up of Comic-Con, with some pictures and thoughts, and yet more links.
The Bat Segundo show flutters back for a second podcast about this year’s Alternative Press Expo.
Ned Beauman is now blogging about comics for the Guardian, but he thinks it’s hard out there for a non-misogynist.
Sequential Tart reviews a couple of Minxes.
The Big ComicMix Broadcast is back home and wait until you hear about the new comics and DVDs we had waiting for us! Plus, we talk to one of the creators of Dark Tower on the future of the Marvel series, DC explains why they feel weekly comics are cool and the Watchmen director spills how is going to make a movie that even Alan Moore might like! We’ve got the news on the relaunch of Reboot, ABC’s PrimeTime plans and a trip back to an artist whose one big hit came just a year after a similar trip to the top from her husband!
You’ll miss ALL of this unless you Press The Button!
On Sunday at San Diego Comic-Con, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers held a mid-afternoon program where their first Scribe Awards were handed out.
Member Andy Mangels played host to a small but enthusiastic crowd as they watched winners in attendance collect their prizes. The association was formed so the best-selling category of fiction could be acknowledged as a category of its own, joining groups for authors of Thrillers, Mysteries, Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction.
There were six categories and Jeff Mariotte snagged two of them in a bit of a surprise given the volume of works submitted.
The winners:
Speculative Fiction, Best Novel Adapted: Superman Returns by Marv Wolfman
Speculative Fiction, Best Novel Original: 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead by Stephen Niles and Jeff Mariotte
General Fiction, Best Novel Adapted: Snakes on a Plane by Christa Faust
Best Novel Original: Las Vegas: High Stakes by Jeff Mariotte
Young Adult All Genres, Best Novel: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Portal Through Time by Alice Henderson
Grandmaster, honoring career achievement in the field: Donald Bain.
Bain was on hand to accept the award in person, thrilled tghat his accomplishments, incouding over 80 novels, were recognized by peers. The IAMTW (www.iamtw.org) is accepting nominations for works in published 2007 with the awards scheduled for next year’s convention.
So, this drunk walks into a San Diego Pizza Parlor…
Saturday noon, and it still hadnât arrived. Voldemortâs work? Or the machinations of something a bit more prosaic â book ninjas, maybe, or gremlins? But no. We fretted in vain. At about three, the doorbell rang, and there he was â Mr. Delivery Man, bearing our own copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
(I donât think a spoiler warning is really necessary at this point â is there anyone who doesnât know Harryâs fate? â but what the hell, consider yourself warned.)
Soon, Marifran was in bed, reading â yes â the end of the novel. I asked her if Harry survives and she said that he does. Whew. The next evening, daughter Meg phoned from Seattle. Sheâs already finished it, all 759 pages. Do all bank vice-presidents spend their weekends reading?
What kind of people are these? What sort of mutated family did I marry into?
Me, I plan to wait for the movie. But Iâm glad the bookâs doing well. Better that gobs of money go to J.K. Rowling, who comports herself with some dignity, than to yet another deluded, sad young woman who calls attention to her desperate self by displaying what, in gentler times, would be seen only by her mate or her gynecologist.
Of course, not everyone is profiting by Ms. Rowlingâs success. Independent bookshops, in order to compete with chains and on-line venues, are selling the book at such steep discounts that their profit is slim to none. And news reports tell us that just because a lot of kids are reading the Potter series doesnât mean that theyâll read anything else. Apparently, Harryâs sui generis and after Deathly Hallows, itâs back to the tube for many.
But surely some kids will try other printed entertainment, once Harry teaches them that whatâs printed can, in fact, be entertaining. Or so those of us who worry about the future of these United States can hope. Al Goreâs new and excellent book, The Assault on Reason (which I recommended last week) tells us that ââ¦the parts of the human brain that are central to the reasoning process are continually activated by the very act of reading printed wordsâ¦the passivity associated with watching television is at the expense of activity in parts of the brain associated with abstract thought, logic, and the reasoning processâ¦An individual who spends four and a half hours a day watching television is likely to have a very different pattern of brain activity from an individual who spends four and a half hours reading.â
So, my understanding of Mr. Gore is, reading is not virtuous because itâs what grandma and grandpa did for fun, but because it stimulates a part of the brain that may be both underused and useful.
Is Harry Potter our new, albeit fictional, messiah? Well, no. We donât want to take it that far. But given the current crop of wannabe saviors, we could do worse.
RECOMMENDED READING: Understanding McLuhan, by W. Terrence Gordon, illustrations by Susan Willmarth.
Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.
Here’s a story that speaks for itself. From today’s Chicago Sun-Times PM Edition: "Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt are missing their clothes and Fred Flintstone and the Teletubbies are just plain missing after a raid on wax figures owned by Ireland’s National Wax Museum. At least 50 figures were stolen or wrecked several weeks ago, the museum reported today."
Tomorrow… they eat … brains…
Artwork copyright Hanna-Barbera. All Rights Reserved.
I’ve seen the Spirit of San Diego, and it’s wearing a costume.
Saturday sold out first at the San Diego Comic-Con and many dealers were wondering why the floor was more crowded on Friday. Well, that’s because Saturday night is the Masquerade. And if you’re wearing a nice costume you don’t want to, and quite often physically can’t, maneuver on a convention floor that’s even mildly crowded. So you wander the many acres of convention center space between the rooms.
And you pose for pictures.
Want to bring happiness to millions (or at least hundreds) in one day? Come to San Diego on Saturday and ask people in costumes to pose for a picture. They live for it, and I’m glad they do. They are brilliant posers, having worn out the mirrors in their houses.
You don’t have to buy a ticket, you can do it on the sidewalk. You don’t even have to have batteries in your camera, it’s the moment that counts, not the immortality.
Some of them are in this world; a sharp looking black haired guy in decent shape in a spot on Superman outfit. He was standing in the back of the room during the DC Panel.
Some are in their own world, in a costume that barely suits (or fits) them. And I wouldn’t be cruel enough to post their picture near this paragraph.
After a while you realize that no one human can know all these characters. After a longer while you start seeing costumes when all the person is is extremely stylish. I saw a guy in backwoods hippie gear and was thinking maybe Hillbilly Bears when I realized this is just how he walks the streets everyday. I asked a woman to pose, thinking her outfit was something from Sandman but she was just a very happening goth chick. And, like a true Shipoopi, she doesn’t get sore if you beg her pardon.
My favorite was the gathering of eight Doctors Who. They’re not only well into their costume and character, they’re clearly having the time of their lives. And when you take a picture or stop to smile back at them, you get a piece of it for free.
If you’re registered as a member of this year’s world science fiction convention, a.k.a. WorldCon (Nippon 2007), you’re entitled to vote for the Hugo awards.
All votes must be received by Midnight (2359hrs), Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, July 31, 2007. You can vote online here. Please note that it’s an alternative preference ballot, i.e. you rank your choices in order of preference — even voting for one of the contenders as your fifth choice may help it win, if there’s no outright victor in the first through fourth runoffs.
If you’re going to the World Science Fiction Convention – the 65th – you’ll be going to Yokohama, Japan and you’ll b e there between August 30th and September 3rd. Get your passports ready!
New York City has a lot of things, but not everything. Whereas this will come as a shock to some Big Appleites, perhaps their outrage will be softened with the news that their hamlet will be honored with its first major anime festival.
The New York Anime Festival will happen December 7 – 9 at various locations in Manhattan, including the always overcrowded, hard-to-get-to Javits Convention Center and, in a brilliant stroke, the ImaginAsian Theater on East 59th Street. That bodes well for a whole lotta screenings, and the location couldn’t be more significant. Kudos.
The show is being run by Reed Communications, the same folks who bring us the horribly managed New York ComicCon. It calls itself a celebration of classic and cutting-edge anime, manga, and Japanese culture, and it’s about time New York got in on the action.
Here’s hoping the show will come off better than their comics show did the past two years.
More info: http://www.nyanimefestival.com/en-us/index.cfm
I’m writing ahead so I can properly annoy people at this past weekend’s San Diego Comic Con, so here’s some massively random thoughts from a probably senile old fart.
Remember the old Batman villain Doctor Double-X? Detective Comics #261, November 1958? The idea was, this guy Doctor X could split into two villains, the second known as Doctor Double-X. Okay, he wasn’t one of your better villains. But now that I think of it – and Crom knows why I was thinking of it – when he split into Doctor Double-X, shouldn’t Doctor Double-X have been a woman?
Back when the Chicago Tribune was still running Lee Falk’s The Phantom, their feature editor told me the strip ranked first among black males. I like The Phantom, but let’s face it: the story is about 21 generations of white men who rule (they each sat on a throne) Africa and the black natives who think he is really one 400 year old man. Was there a severe self-image problem amongst those polled, or what?
You probably remember Marvel Comics’ adaptation of the Planet of the Apes. What you might not know is that what you may have read from Marvel was not their original adaptation. They did the story, printed it and received a few untrimmed copies from the printer. Only then did it come to Marvel’s attention that star Charlton Heston had approval rights to all depictions. Marvel trashed the print run, made the appropriate changes, and went back to press. But at least one of those untrimmed, uncollated copies still exists. It’s not noted in the Overstreet Guide (at least not volume 35, the one closest to me). I wonder what it’s worth on the collector’s market?
Back in the height of the alternate / silver foil / prism / wacky numbering fad (as opposed to today’s alternate / pencil cover / second-printing cover fad), Mike Grell and I wanted to publish a special issue of Shaman’s Tears between issues 3 and 4. It would have been called Shaman’s Tears #π, and it would have been printed on bubble gum stock. We were overruled. Within a year or so, Marvel licensed their comics out to be printed on bubble gum. (more…)
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
