Round 3 of Mix March Madness, and we’re down to the Sweet 16! Chaaaaaarge!

To our left… Evil Atom, Miss Match, Captain Heroic and the cunning corporation known as…

Evil Inc.!

And to our right… Neil Gaiman says it “grabs you from the first and keeps going… does it with aplomb, with soul and with a sense of joy…”

A Distant Soil!

Operators are standing by! Vote now!

[poll id=”53″]

Polling closes at 11:59 Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, March 23!

Click here to see all the webcomics and their standing in the tournament!

For decades, Roger Corman has entertained us with scores of movies, and they keep on coming. We begin our visit with Roger and his wife Julie about the careers and what they are working on now.Plus we finally get a Pa Kent and WOLVERINE loses a director.

Don’t forget – Pop Culture never sleeps (and neither do we). Catch the latest 24/7 on The Point Radio.

On Saturday night, Peter David won an award from the the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for his work on X-Factor and the portrayal of Rictor and Shatterstar. The Media Award recipients were announced in 25 of this year’s 32 media categories at the 22nd Annual GLAAD Media Awards presented in New York. Other winners included Russell Simmons, Ricky Martin, the HBO drama series True Blood, the NBC comedy , and CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ for its series on gay teen suicides.

We asked Peter for his reaction.

ComicMix: So, first off, congratulations. Do you have an acceptance speech? We took the conductor’s baton away, so you have all the time you want.
Peter A. David: I guess I’d say that we’ve come a long way from when the Comics Code Authority forced DC to remove what the CCA saw as a lesbian kiss in an issue of Justice League Task Force I had written, even though it was a kiss between a woman and a shapeshifted J’onn J’onzz. I’m appreciative of Marvel Comics allowing me so much latitude in X-Factor, particularly Joe Quesada’s unequivocal public support when Rictor and Shatterstar first liplocked.  I note that the award only names me, and I think that’s shortsighted, because there’s been a host of artists and editors along the way who have done a terrific job to bring the stories to the public.  And ultimately I look forward to the day when this award is utterly unnecessary because the positive portrayal of LGBTs is simply so commonplace that it’s no longer newsworthy.  It’s just the normal state of things.

CM: We have the perennial question: so when did you first know that Rictor was gay?  And what was it like coming out to the rest of the comics community?
(more…)

We all know the story of Spider-Man’s original sin– how, at the height of fame and glory and as a matter of pique, he let a burglar go free rather than make any effort to catch him, with tragic consequences.

Now consider the story of Jon Jones, who was preparing for the MMA Light Heavyweight Championship fight in Newark, NJ, last night, when he found himself in the same situation.

Jones and his coaches were getting dropped off at a park in nearby Paterson, NJ when his co-manager Glenn Robinson warned them that the area was known for its crime. The trio shrugged it off and was no sooner out of the car when they heard screaming. Before Jones quite realized what was happening, his coaches Jackson and Winkeljohn took off after a man who had allegedly smashed a windshield and stolen a GPS unit. Jones ran after them.

“I got these gazelle legs, and I’m running, and next thing you know, I catch up to my coaches,” he said. “I said, ‘What do we do? We going to catch this guy?'”

Jones said it was then he “put the jets on” and sprinted past his coaches.

“The guy looks back, he sees me,” Jones said. “You know I’m 6-foot-4, and I said, ‘You know I’m going to catch you, right?'”

The thief tripped over his own feet and as he tried to regain his footing, Jones kicked his ankle out, figure-foured his legs and helped hold him until the police came for the easy collar.

Jones said it was then that one of the cops realized who he was.

“The policeman said, ‘What? What are you doing here? Aren’t you fighting tonight?'” Jones said.

Jones then returned back to the woman who had screamed for help, and she thanked him and told him God would be with him as he fought.

Jones went on to win UFC 128 Light Heavyweight Championship that night over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. No word if Jones has an uncle.

MMAFighting.com also has video of him recounting the story at a press conference after his victory, where he said he and his team felt like superheroes.

No, sir– you did the superheroes one better.