So you are all worn out after waiting on line for that iPhone yesterday? We’ve got a Heap O’ Hot Summer Stuff on the Big ComicMix Weekend Broadcast, including that Watchmen rumor everyone will be talking about, a tip on what will be the hottest variant comic of the summer, plus more Summer Reading Previews and a look at something in the comic stores just for the grown ups!
Press The Button. Who knows – maybe an iPhone will pop out of your disk drive!
Thirty years ago today, Marvel released the debut of Marvel Comics Super Special #1 featuring Kiss, where they squared off against (who else?) Mephisto and Dr. Doom. The issue was printed with ink that had blood added from each of the band members, a feat not surpassed until Mark Gruenwald’s ashes were mixed in with the trade paperback of Squadron Supreme.
Kiss would later star in a second Super Special, a 31 issue run of Kiss: Psycho Circus with Image in the 90’s, guest star in Howard The Duck, and made an announcement back in February of the creation of the Kiss Comics Group.
Gene Simmons is a huge comic book fan, reportedly taking the heavy metal salute of index and pinky fingers extended (pictured below) straight from Doctor Strange, and publishing some of his own titles with the Simmons Comics Group, such as Gene Simmons’s House of Horrors, which will be out in July from IDW.
And Simmons noted in his autobiography that the character he most identifies with is Jon Sable. Boy, is he going to be happy soon…
Popeye by Bud Sagendorf, reprinted in newspapers last Wednesday but originally published a couple decades ago. In fact, Bud Sagendorf has been dead for 12 years. No, it wasn’t a suicide.
About a dozen years ago, Popeye cartoonist Bobby London got fired for a storyline that set-up a minor, passing joke reference to abortion, without even employing the word. It was so subtle it didn’t offend King Features editors at the time; they dutifully sent it along to subscribing newspapers. When somebody objected, London got aborted from the strip.
Olive survived both gags. She will be appearing later this year in a commercial for Prego pasta sauce.
Yep. "Prego."
Artwork copyright King Features Syndicate. All Rights Reserved.
This past month has been a very busy one for me. I’ve been out of town three times, twice on business, and I’ve attended two trade shows and three comics conventions. It’s a lot of time to be thrust into crowds of people, whether waiting at an airport, a synagogue, a taxi line or a display booth.
This past month has exposed me to a variety of interpretations to the phrase, “customer service.”
I first started to think about this nearly 20 years ago, when I saw a presentation by Peter Glen, the author of It’s Not My Department: How to Get the Service You Want, Exactly the Way You Want It. At the time, I was working in the special events department for a large retailer, and we were just starting to feel the first effects of Wal-Mart and other discount stores. According to Glen, the way to compete was not by cutting prices, but by offering more service.
He doesn’t just mean stores need to hire more sales assistants. He means the customer must be treated with respect, as if her time has value, and her needs are important. Customer service includes displays that feature all available sizes, quality merchandise that doesn’t break, and efficient check-out. This shows the customer that the merchant understands her, and provides the best value.
“Value?” you say. “How can you say value is important when you first said stores shouldn’t compete on price alone?” Well, I’m glad you asked. Would you rather shop at Wal-Mart, where costs are kept so low that they won’t hire a security guard to patrol their notoriously dangerous parking lots, or at another store where the management demonstrates a concern for your safety? Would you rather by a cheap coffee-maker (or other small appliance) that you need to replace every year, or a good one that lasts a decade or more?
As a comics reader, would you rather buy a comic that has a cover that’s teasing or unclear, or would prefer one that clearly represents the story inside?
When I worked at DC Comics, I was astounded at how obscure some of the covers for the trade paperback collections could be. “Where’s the title?” I’d ask. “How can I tell who wrote and drew the story?” Often, this information would be on the back of the books, invisible to the customer looking at the display. “It doesn’t matter,” I was told. “By the time the book is racked, we’ve already been paid for it.” (more…)
I can’t make this stuff up. Well, I mean, I can, but why the hell would I want to?
You may have heard things have been getting a little hot over in the Gaza Strip, even by local standards. The Associated Press reported Friday that a Mickey Mouse lookalike who preached Islamic domination on a Hamas-affiliated children’s television program was beaten to death in the show’s final episode Friday.
Go back and re-read that paragraph. Now look at the photo.
Yep, that’s right. Hamas killed Mickey Mouse – and blamed the Israelis.
The way the story goes, an Israeli official was trying to buy the land of the show’s hero, Farfour the Mouse, who looks and sounds exactly like Mickey. The mouse called the Israeli a "terrorist" and the Israeli killed him. According to the AP: "Farfour was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed "by the killers of children," she added.
According to TV Guide Online, here’s their latest top 30 cult teevee shows of all time.
I would scoff at this, but it turns out I really like at least a dozen of ’em.
30) Strangers with Candy (1999-2000)*
29) Absolutely Fabulous (1994-2003)
28) Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007)*
27) H.R. Pufnstuf (1969-1971)
26) Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1975-1978)
25) Firefly (2002-2003)*
24) Twin Peaks (1990-1991)
23) Dark Shadows (1966-1971)
22) Doctor Who (1963-present)
21) Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000)
The Shadow, everybody’s favorite seminal pulp crime-fighter, has been getting a lot of play here at ComicMix – largely in anticipation of volume nine of Anthony Tollin’s series of Shadow reprints to be released in about three weeks. In case you missed the story and are short on time, this volume reveals in detail how the first Batman story was a point-by-point rip-off of a previously published Shadow saga.
So, on the lighter side, today we offer two alternate views of crime’s nocturnal nightmare. The black-and-white piece is by long-time fan and historian Russ Maheras and poses the question "What if The Shadow had been a 1960s Mort Weisinger comic?" This isn’t quite as odd as it might seem: Weisinger, of course, was the classic Superman comics editor of the 1950s and 1960s (and story editor of the original teevee series), and Superman creator Jerry Siegel wrote The Shadow comics for Archie during this period. Russ captured the style of Mort’s books to a tee.
The color piece, by Dial B For Burbank’s Robby Reed, suggests the cover design of a 1960s Shadow Annual as if Street and Smith published it in the style of DC Comics’ 80-Page Giants. Dial B For Burbank is one of the most innovative pulp-and-serial sites I’ve seen, and we appreciate his allowing us to share an advance look at the art.
The Shadow is copyright Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc., Condé Nast Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. They know what evil lurks in the hearts of fans!
Thanks to Russ and KK for the swell stuff!
Over at Doctor Who, Martha Jones, the tenth Doctor’s second companion, is getting tired of unrequited love. Next season, she’s starting to look at everybody’s favorite object of lust, Torchwood‘s Captain Jack Harkness.
It seems Captain Jack has been working his sexual magic on the latest companion. According to the London Daily Mirror, when the 30th season of Doctor Who goes up next year, Martha will not be in all episodes – but will pick up the slack by appearing in a number of episodes of Torchwood. A new companion will join the cast of the former series, and Martha will not be in this year’s Christmas special. However, singer Kylie Minogue will co-star in the latter event.
The 29th season of Doctor Who ends in Britain tomorrow with the last of the three-part battle with The Master (John Simm, star of Life On Mars). This season is already being broadcast in many parts of the world, including Australia and Canada; it goes up in the United States on the SciFi Network a week from today.
Years ago I wrote a column for Comics Buyers Guide (CBG) called Picture This. I actually started writing that column even before Peter David started writing his. Being the professional he is, Peter has been able to sustain his column But I Digress for well over a decade. I lasted a few months before I simply stopped writing it. Demands on my time and personal life caused me to abandon what truly was a great gig for an even greater magazine.
Now I’m writing this column and have managed to keep my deadlines (except for one little itsy bitsy time when I got my column in late and it had to run on Saturday instead of Friday) for twenty weeks and I am having a great time.
There are some people who still remember my Picture This column. If you think I am a raving manic now you should have seen me then. I pissed off more people than Katharine Harris did during the 2000 election. In my career I have also written guest columns in a few magazines as well as a few editorials over the years in various outlets. Those people who know me know that I am a shameless self-promoter. That said, in all of the hundreds of articles I have written I have never plugged a current deal that I was involved in. I may have mentioned what I was working on but never with any eye towards getting people to go out and watch what I was doing on TV or buy what I was publishing in the comic stores. In fact in all my ranting over the years I have only written about one subject more than once.
That subject was rumors.
I just heard a recent rumor that has compelled me to write about a current project I’m involved in, The Guardian Line (TGL)
I was recently talking to Lovern Kindzierski on the phone. Lovern is one of my best friends and we are working together on TGL. I have a book open and I’m looking for an artist and asked Lovern if he knew of anyone. He then mentioned that there is a creator in a comic book chat room saying that UMI (TGL’s parent company) does not pay their creators.
At this point I would usually launch into a tirade and make a few cleaver attacks on the unnamed creator. (more…)
Mad Magazine goes for the easy jokes with their “Rejected Star Wars Stamps.”
The UK’s own Guardian newspaper wonders why science fiction is more popular now on TV than it used to be, and blames 9/11. Others have already pointed out that the Guardian seems to have forgotten the mid-90s surge of SF and Fantasy TV (Buffy, anyone? Babylon 5, perhaps?), but at least they’re saying nice things…
Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is running a contest to give away a few copies of Jay Lake’s new novel, Mainspring, set in a clockwork solar system. (That bizarre mental image you just got? Yes – it’s exactly like that.)
Did you know that ABEbooks.com (the noted conglomerator of used book retailers) has been running a contest for Harry Potter-related poetry? And that the entries, so far, are not nearly as horribly soul-destroying as you might expect?
James Maxey, author of the new novel Bitterwood, ruminates on how to create dragons.
Jonathan McCalmont has been to see “The Ugly Side of Fandom,” and reports back about what he has seen.
Hey, didja notice that the cover from last week’s New Yorker was by Pixar artist Lou Romano? Romano explains how he got the job, and what went into it, on his blog this week.
Artwork copyright E.C. Publications. All Rights Reserved.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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