This weekend, Zack Snyder‘s eye-blasting SUCKER PUNCH hits the screen., We sat down with the cast, starting today with Emily (“Babydoll”) Browning, for a look at just what you can expect. Plus Roger Corman talks about that one film that gave him a headache (and guess wh0 was in it!)
Seeing SUCKER PUNCH this weekend? Drop us a comment below!
Don’t forget – Pop Culture never sleeps (and neither do we). Catch the latest 24/7 on The Point Radio.
As you’ve seen if you’ve been following the site at all this week, we’ve taken sixty-four popular webcomics and are putting them head to head in a single-elimination tournament. As a result, it’s been a very busy week here at ComicMix, and we have less than 40 hours of voting in the first round, so we wanted to point to some of the highlights.
The contest getting the highest vote totals right now is Gronk vs. Zeke Is Hungry, which is seeing a lot of love from their respective Twitter followers. The most one-sided blowout so far has to be Maakies vs. Erfworld, where Rob Balder is beating the heck out of Tony Millionaire.
At this point, there are a couple of upsets in the works, with young upstarts beating out long established strips. While one or two people pointed out that some of the match-ups are a little odd, we couldn’t find any better way to select matches than a random selection process. Is it fair that either Penny Arcade or Hark! A Vagrant! will be knocked out in the first round? Maybe not, but one was going to be knocked out by the end of the tournament no matter what happened. It’s a testament to the strength of the entire webcomics community that there are so many good strips out there that I personally have been tearing my hair out over many of the choices (who can choose between some of these, both are just so gooooood… but of course, that’s what makes this exciting) and that there are so many good strips that we didn’t include that we may have to do another one of these next month. How does April Armageddon sound to you?
But wait– we aren’t even done with the first round of this month’s contest. So if you haven’t voted, your chance is right below!
The future for home video in 2010 is taking shape
and as 2009 winds down, ComicMix, like everyone else, is looking ahead. The VHS
tape is gone, replaced by DVD and that too is now quickly getting replaced by
the Blu-ray. The Digital Entertainment Group says Blu-ray Disc set-top player
sales grew 112 percent over the same period last year. Blu-ray devices are at
the top of many consumers’ holiday wish lists this year are projected to be in
15 million U.S. homes by the end of this year.
With players now as cheap as $150, the penetration rate is
skyrocketing and the studios are cognizant of this. They also know that people
are reluctant to pay more for Blu-ray discs to replace their standard DVDs so
these new discs are coming in fancier packages and with lots of extras.
One of the key differences between standard DVD and Blu-ray
is that the BD Live function allows studios to continue offering fresh content
even after the disc goes on sale. McG, for example, did a live screening of Terminator Salvation with questions from viewers. As more filmmakers figure out
how to gain maximum mileage from this direct communications, it will keep the
Blu-ray more vital.
Over the past year, Walt Disney has been collecting their
films in two and three packs. Like most studios these days, you get the DVD and
a digital copy presuming you wish to download the film to watch on your device
of choice. Disney then added the Blu-ray, DVD, and digital disc to form the
mega set, so there’s just one version to sell to one and all – of course,
up-priced so the profits are fatter.
Today’s collection of items may not be worth a post of their own, but may be of interest:
Anything else we missed? Consider this an open thread.
24 Hour Comics Day is an annual challenge for cartoonists to produce a 24-page comic book written, drawn, and completed in 24 consecutive hours. The event was founded in 2004 by Nat Gertler, prolific author and publisher of the About Comics company. Currently, the event is organized each year by the comic book specialty retailer trade organization ComicsPRO, and hosted by independent comic stores around the country.
The idea of the 24-hour comic comes from Scott McCloud, who originally came up with it as a creative exercise for himself and Steve Bissette. McCloud’s rules for the challenge were thus: The comic must be begun and completed within 24 consecutive hours. Only one person may be directly involved in its creation, and it must span 24 pages, or (if an infinite canvas format webcomic is being made) 100 panels. The creator may gather research materials and drawing tools beforehand, but cannot plan the comic’s plot ahead of time or put anything on paper (such as designs and character sketches) until he is ready for the 24 hours to begin. Any breaks (for food, sleep, or any other purpose) are counted as part of the 24 hours.
Numerous notable comic creators have attempted the challenge over the years. Dave Sim published his 24-hour comics in the back of his popular book Cerebus the Aardvark. Neil Gaiman and Kevin Eastman tried and failed, and became the namesakes for the two varieties of “noble failures”: Gaiman stopped his comic at the 24-hour mark; Eastman continued to the full 24 pages. McCloud maintains a site for the challenge and also keeps an official list of recognized 24-hour comics. ComicsPRO reports that over 1,000 people have completed the challenge. Compilation books are available of the completed challenges for the past few years, and McCloud has a book on the subject as well.
While most participants are amateurs, many pro cartoonists take part as well. In addition to the most common black-ink-on-white-paper drawings, participants have done full color painted comics, computer-drawn comics, photo comics, comics made of pictures of posed action figures, a series of painted stones with captions, and a Daredevil superhero comic made by cutting pictures of Ben Affleck’s head out of magazines and pasting them onto stick figure bodies. The biggest single event was in Austin Books in Austin, Texas in 2005, with 70 cartoonists. 2006 saw event sites in 17 countries, and the reports for 2008 are still coming in.
My favorite 24-hour comic? Scott Kurtz’s take on Batman.
Typhon
Dirty Danny Press, $24.95
At 50, I’m pretty set in my comic book reading habits. Having been raised largely on the output from DC Comics and Marvel, I have fairly mainstream tastes. Now and then, though, I push myself to see what else is out there. As a result, reading Danny Hellman’s recently published [[[Typhon]]] anthology was an eye-opening experience.
The 192-page full-color trade paperback allows me the chance to see who else is producing comic book work. Typhon takes its name from Greek mythology and is a creature with hundreds of hissing serpents, outdoing the Medusa. Venom was said to drip form their eyes and lava to be spit from their mouths. There are no super-heroes, no continuing characters, nothing based on a media property (although Droopy appears in one story). Each tendril from the creature’s head is the product of the fertile imagination of the 42 creators who contributed to over the course of several years.
Hellman may be best known for his [[[Legal Action Comics]]] in addition to his own work at Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and the Village Voice. Promoting the book, he said, “I realized that I was looking at a far more ambitious book than what I’d done previously. The work presented in Typhon covers a wide spectrum of what’s possible in comics, from zany, offbeat humor to unnerving existential angst, and on to chilling horror, all of it brought to life with breathtaking, cutting-edge artwork.
“Anthologies give us the opportunity to enjoy work by talented cartoonists who, for whatever reason, don’t produce enough material to fill out solo books. As an editor of anthologies, I’m excited to provide a showcase for artists and work that we might not see otherwise. Diversity makes for a richer comics scene.”
Everything he says is correct and to be applauded. I really enjoyed the colorful, inventive use of the page from Hans Rickheit, Rupert Bottenberg, Tobias Tak, and Fiona Smyth. They created visually arresting images and used color in appealing ways. On the other hand, I could not make heads or tails out of Bald Eagles’ eight page head trip that is hard on the eyes and unreadable.
On the other hand, way too often I’d reach the end of these short works and scratch my head. “What the hell was that all about?” was a repeated refrain. I’m used to stories about character or stories about something. Yet, these works seem to be characters and situations that begin and end and say nothing. Too frequently, I think the creators were out to amuse themselves, forgetting their audience. Rick Trembles’ “[[[Goopy Spasms]]]” feels like it was done because he could not because he had something say or share and was generally off-putting.
Hellman told Tom Spurgeon, “…It can be tough to pin down precisely what ‘good drawing’ is. Ultimately, beautiful art is a matter of taste. Drawing chops, anatomical knowledge, the ability to recreate the natural world in two dimensions and have it be both accurate and pleasing to the eye; these are important. But what’s really vital is that we connect with the art on an emotional, perhaps spiritual level.”
I’m all in favor of creative freedom but if someone wants my $24.95, then the editor of the collection has to step up and guide the talent to make certain their point, if there is one, gets across, from page to reader. Here, Hellman spectacularly fails.
He kicks off the collection with his own “[[[The Terror in Peep Booth 5]]]” which looks and reads closest to a mainstream comic, complete with beginning, middle and end. After that, though, it’s all over the place. Perhaps the most moving piece is Tim Lane’s “The Manic Depressive from Another Planet”.
I enjoyed being exposed to new voices and talents but come away disappointed that there are all these people with very little to say.
Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft
By Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez
IDW Publishing, October 2008, $24.99
Horror in comic books have always been an uneven affair. These days, horror comics tend to feature zombies or H.P. Lovecraft adaptations but there’s so much more that can explored. Fortunately, Joe Hill doesn’t mind going where others fear to tread.
His [[[Locke & Key]]] miniseries at IDW was a chilling affair, as much for its fresh take on the supernatural as for the superb art from Gabriel Rodriguez. The six issues are collected today for the first time in a handsome hardcover volume that comes well recommended.
Too often horror offers you stock characters in a stock situations and how A Meets B is about the only variable. You tend not to care a whit for the hero or victim and too often gore for gore’s sake overwhelms the storytelling. Hill, instead, takes his time setting up the characters, the Locke family, and as wee progress through the 158 pages, we learn things. As a result, we get to care for the three children whose father dies at the story’s beginning. There’s Ty, the eldest who is conflicted over the father he had come to hate; Kinsey the young teen figuring out her place in the world and young Bode who becomes our focal point.
After their father is killed, Nina takes her children to live with her brother-in-law at Keyhouse in Lovecraft, MA. The large ramshackle property comes complete with a well house and its while visiting there that Bode comes in contact with a spirit. The growing relationship truly begins our story as the secrets of the Locke family and their connections to the other residents of the small island town are doled out in bite-sized chunks.
Zap2it is reporting that production has been shut down on Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse for two weeks. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Fox just did the same thing on 24 and for the same reason: a chance to tighten the scripts.
Whedon apparently had been so involved in directing two episodes, he was neglecting the writers’ room and the scripts weren’t ready. He approached Fox and asked for the time off and they were happy to grant it since the midseason replacement wasn’t needed until after the holidays. Whedon had directed two of the three episodes shot to date. The series order is for eight episodes meaning a good sized proportion of the series is now in the can.
A Fox rep told the website, "We have every confidence that [the extra time] will allow Joss to make the show the best it can possibly be. It’s very rare that you have a head writer who is also directing two episodes in a row. But we are happy that Joss is directing, because this is his vision."
Bluesman
By Rob Vollmar and Pablo G. Callejo
NBM, August 2008, $24.95
[[[Bluesman]]] was published once before, as three album-sized collections, but this is the first time the entire story has been collected between two covers. It’s a moody tale, told in black and white – but mostly in grays, from the background to the characters.
Lem Taylor is a blues guitarist, wandering through the rural Mississippi Delta in the late ‘20s, hungry and foot-sore. With him is a blues pianist, Ironwood Malcott, and together they make some excellent music. But that doesn’t put food in their bellies half the time, let alone a roof over the heads and a bed at night more than every so often.
As the book begins, their luck is beginning to look up: they get a decent gig at a popular juke house called Shug’s and are invited up to Memphis to record some sides by J.L. Dougherty, a traveling salesman who also acts as a talent scout.
I had forgotten how much superhero comics had changed in the past 15 years when I picked up Valiant’s new Harbinger: The Beginning
It’s impossible to evaluate the stories without looking at the context of their era. True, [[[Harbinger]]] never reached the excessive silliness of Liefeld’s [[[X-Force]]], but it’s populated by edgy characters with dated nicknames like “Torque,” who spout even more dated phrases like “buttlick.”
Since the crash of the ’90s, comics have largely moved toward a more serious and realistic tone, and Harbinger (created by Jim Shooter and David Lapham) stands in stark contrast. All the same, in many ways the book holds up, probably no surprise since it once garnered a great number of fans.
What’s especially appreciable about Harbinger is how it strays from the superhero stereotype, something even today’s books struggle to do. The protagonist, Pete, is not a clear-cut hero; instead he’s an immature and often egotistical teen who doesn’t understand the dangers of his powers. The villain, Harada, is no great man, but his central goal is to protect the world from Pete.
As much as anything, Harbinger is about the folly of youth and the lessons to be learned from those mistakes. It falls into cliché and hollow edginess, but more often jumps in surprising directions and offers a new (again, in context) take on heroes.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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