In a world where most of the comic industry is trying to “do it digital” we found a guy who is bucking the system with a new project in print only – and on today’s Big ComicMix Broadcast we reveal his story! Plus news on Image’s new Dynamo 5 collection, big heat in the X-Men titles, how you and someone you know can be a “Simpson” and some old rockers who rose out of the ashes to go multi-platinum.
Press The Button – we need to sample your DNA
Marvel editor Tom Brevoort posts Mark Millar’s original memo/pitch for Civil War.
Comic Book Resources presents the third part of their look at Homosexuality in Comics.
Blogcritics reviews a pile of DC and Image comics, starting with Dynamo 5 #3.
Blogcritics also has a Marvel comics review, and is particularly fond of Nova #4.
Forbidden Planet International reviews a couple of Marvel Comics from years past..
Comics Reporter reviews Ted May’s Injury #1.
Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog reviews the saga of the Mighty Marvel MegaMorphs.
Hannibal Tabu reviews his purchases this week for Comic Book Resources.
We’re at something of a cultural crossroads.
On July 21, Saturday, the last new Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, will be published. With this, J.K. Rowling completes her story and a literary phenomenon is completed. Yes, I know there are two more movies and scads of related tie-ins still to come but the story itself will be complete. We’ll know how it ends.
I have a mistrust of anything that labels itself an “instant classic.” It suggests adding water to a half-baked idea, mix, and you have something for the ages. For something to be classic, time must pass. The work must speak to more than one generation. In the 1920 and the 1930s, the detective Philo Vance was all the rage; today, virtually nobody has heard of him, let alone read him.
All that said, I do think the Harry Potter books have the potential to become classics, to be read and loved by future generations. There is a timeless quality to them; they create their own separate but accessible world; and – as with all truly great children’s literature – they are accessible to adults as well as children. I’m 58 years old; I write GrimJack and have written things like Wasteland. I’m a fan of hard-boiled noir detective fiction and, yes, I’m a Potter-head as well.
What is going to decide whether or not the Potter books become classics or not, I think, is going to depend on how author J.K. Rowling winds up the series. I have nothing but respect for Ms. Rowling; she went from being a single mother on welfare when she wrote the first Potter book to being worth more than the Queen of England as she winds up the series. By the end of the summer, they’ll have to start inviting her to G8 meetings. On a simple commercial level, the writer in me is in awe.
The writer in me also admires her clear-headed vision of herself and of her work. I’ve dealt with fans, my own and Star Wars fans, and while I love them I know how fanatical some can get. There can be this sense of identification with a work to where they can feel entitlement or ownership even above the creator his or herself. On a video, I heard Ms. Rowling address this and say, pretty close to verbatim, “Is it important to me what the fans think? Absolutely. Should it change one word of what I’m doing? Absolutely not.” For the record, I think Ms. Rowling is spot on.
As I was saying, however, whether or not the Harry Potter books go on to become a classic or a flash in the pan will depend on this final book – on how she winds up the series. That ending must satisfy everyone, young readers and older ones alike, who have made an emotional investment that spans years. That doesn’t necessarily imply a happy ending; the movie Casablanca doesn’t have a “happy” ending in that the two lovers, Rick and Ilsa, are together. But, boy, does the ending satisfy the viewer.
There’s been a lot of speculation about how the series will end. Word has it that two of the series’ characters will die and that one of them could be Harry Potter himself. Since this is my last shot at it before the book comes out, I’m going to chime in with my own opinions/speculations. WARNING: SAID SPECULATIONS WILL NECESSITATE REVEALING EVENTS THAT HAVE HAPPENED IN PREVIOUS BOOKS. IF YOU’RE NOT CAUGHT UP AND HAVE SOMEHOW AVOIDED LEARNING WHAT’S HAPPENED AND WANT TO LEAVE IT THAT WAY, GO READ SOMETHING ELSE. NOT THIS.
Perhaps the comic book world has achieved a higher level of respectability. According to WCBS radio in New York, military recruiters have discovered two new and potentially lucrative areas to ply their trade, as they have started targeting shopping mall food courts and comic book stores.
Whereas at first this might seem like a clever (or, given the nature of shopping mall food, desperate) approach, at least three groups of people are upset with the practice: parents who don’t want their kids to go to Iraq, mall managers who are accustomed to renting space to recruiters, and comic book collectors who are concerned about receiving their alternate cover editions in Falusia in mint condition.
It’s hard to say if this approach has been worth the effort, but many readers have noticed the increased level of military recruitment advertising in DC and Marvel comics. I’ll have to check to see if such ads have been appearing in Rick Veitch’s Army @ Love.
Artwork copyright DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
The older I get, the more Einsteinian I become in my concept of time. It’s like I’m watching a vehicle moving at light-speed, Dopplering like crazy, when it’s all I can do sometimes to make it from point A to point B. I’m just a 20th century gal in a 21st century world.
Which isn’t always a bad thing. I retain a viewpoint that I honestly think is foreign to many around me, one that relies greatly on the ideas of common sense and common courtesy. Don’t spend more on your credit card than you have money to pay it off. When you’re out to dinner, stack your plates in a way that makes them easier for the server to handle. If you’re responsible for someone who can’t care for themselves, their needs supercede yours. Behind the wheel, do everything you can to facilitate traffic flow, don’t do anything that distracts you from driving, and always let aggressive drivers pass you so you’re well rid of them. Don’t do anything in public that will cause discomfort to others around you, unless they’re more politically powerful and intending you physical harm. Listening is more important than talking. (Okay, I don’t have that last one down quite yet, but I’m working on it!)
Two of my conclusions after almost fifty years on this planet come down to “sex is private” and “violence is abhorrent.” I don’t know why people who wish to regulate media keep pairing the two, as the former affirms life while the latter negates it. And to tell you the truth, while I’m not that big on regulation myself, sometimes I think it may just be needed in certain circumstances. Because, once again, I see so few people around me any more exercising common sense and common courtesy.
While it’s true that societal mores, like language, are an ever-evolving phenomenon, it’s not that difficult to suss out what might discomfit the majority those around them — if they cared to. But selfishness often wins out over courtesy. So while a kiss on the lips may be quite continental, no matter who’s kissing whom, when that public kiss turns into major gropage or heavy petting it’s time for the participants to think about getting a room. As my mom is fond if saying regarding the romance novels she reads, “I prefer the ones that stop at the bedroom door.”
Or the bathroom door, for that matter. Bodily functions are nothing of which to be ashamed; neither are they anything to show off. If you’re planning to go beyond a simple exchange of saliva, do consider a more intimate and less public venue, one with doors between you and the general public. That goes for feeding your baby straight from the source as well. But hey, maybe that’s just me. I see enough fluids around me as it is, I don’t really want to deal with other people’s. It’s beautiful, it’s natural… it’s private, mmmkay? (more…)
Fantasy Book Critic reviews Warren Ellis’s first novel, Crooked Little Vein.
BestSF has reviewed a few magazines this week:
Don D’Amassa’s Critical Mass has new reviews on the Science Fiction page, including Blake Nelson’s young adult novel They Came From Below, Robert Charles Wilson’s Axis, and Charles Stross’s Halting State.
D’Amassa’s Fantasy page also has new reviews: Steph Swainston’s The Modern World, Charles Stross’s The Merchants’ War, and others.
And D’Amassa’s Horror page has new reviews as well: Scott Thomas’s Over the Darkening Fields, the new Tales from the Crypt #1, and more.
Nader Elhefnawy, at Tangent, goes off on a dumb Christopher Hitchens quote from Atlantic Monthly to the effect that SF has a “dearth of sex.”
Elhefnawy also had an essay at Tangent about Michael Moorcock and censorship.
The Space Review has published a transcript of the talk, and the following question and answer session, given by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin at the recent Heinlein Centennial.
The Contra Costa Times has an article on the huge science fiction collection at the University of California-Riverside.
Ben Bova’s regular column in the Naples News is devoted to talking about his own Campbell Award-winning novel Titan, Campbell himself, and science fiction in general.
The Salt Lake Tribune looks at the interesting phenomenon of Christian fantasy novels.
Neth Space is annoyed that so many titles begin with the word “the.”
SF Scope reports on editor and author Gardner Dozois’s recent quintuple bypass heart surgery. Details are few, but it sounds like he’s recovering pretty well – I certainly hope so, and send him all best wishes. (In happier Dozois news, he recently turned in a new original anthology, tentatively entitled Galactic Empires, to Rome Quezada of the SF Book Club, and I’m sure that book will be another winner.)
Cory Doctorow has another one of his periodic essays at Locus Online this week, all about different kinds of visions of the future.
The soul-searching about reviewing on blogs continues unabated into a second week, as Larry of the OF Blog of the Fallen explains why he reviews.
Similarly, Patrick, of Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, has a long post about reviewing, book giveaways, and blogging.
He’s been captain of the Starship Enterprise and a partner at a Boston law firm. He’s shilled for websites and arrested bad guys. Now William Shatner is going to be a talk-show host, like Jay Leno or his buddy Henry Rollins.
Variety reports that the Biography Channel has ordered 13 episodes of the show, called Shatner’s Raw Nerve. They say the show "will explore life’s most intriguing questions and unearth his guests’ strange and unknown stories."
A new week for the Big ComicMix Broadcast and some good scoops fresh out of the top-secret E3 Gaming Con, as well as a peek at the future of DC’s The Brave and the Bold and your wallet at war with tons of new comics and DVDs out this week – we are guessing you will surrender on this one! Then we toss out a few more San Diego tidbits and even subscribe to that X-Files 2 movie rumor!
The truth is still out there – but you have to PRESS The Button to get it!
In an op-ed piece in today’s Los Angeles Times, Tim Cavanaugh traces the disconnect between comic book’s influence on mass media and comic book’s actual sales. He starts out on this up-beat note: "Dying media don’t come much dying-er than monthly comic books."
He goes on to decry the "cloying, creepy, did-I-accidentally-enter-a-porn-shop vibe" of many comic book stores, and the cautiousness of most publishers. He talks to Tom Spurgeon and Peter Bagge.
Like so many others, Cavanauagh suggests that the web may be the solution. Stay tuned.
In what is certain to be received with shock and awe, the vaguely innovative Sci-Fi Channel is going to precede the November 24th broadcast of the two-hour Battlestar Galactica teevee movie Razor with a bunch of two-to-three minute "mini-sodes" (their term, not mine) that will "provide background and context" for the movie special and, no doubt, help round-out their DVD release.
The micro-story will revolve around the first Cylon War and a young William Adama (Nico Cortez). The gumball-sized mini-sodes will be broadcast on Sci-Fi in October and November. Consult your local listings for time, but don’t be too surprised if you discover nada en detalle.
Remember, while watching, you can blink, but don’t dare sneeze.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
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