Tagged: Beatles

Ed Catto’s Holiday Gift Guide 2017

Yesterday The New York Times devoted a full page to this perplexing moment in Geek Culture we find ourselves in: a time when there are “too many versions” of Batman on the big and little screen. This persnickety topic is worth a deeper dive at a later date, but the big headline for this gift-giving season is that are a cornucopia of options for Geek Culture lovers. I could devote a whole column to Batman stuff available, but instead let me just touch on the Caped Crusader and instead offer up a broad range of Geek Culture gift ideas.

I love just about all of the Titan publications, and their merchandise is quite impressive as well. Their list of new goodies includes everything from The Beatles to Preacher to Pulp Fiction to Kill Bill! Titan’s Yellow Submarine vinyl figures blind box series is especially fun for Beatles fans as it includes obscure and esoteric figures. And each one looks fab.

Eaglemoss creates so many cool products for Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, DC characters, Marvel characters (via their chess set series), Walking Dead and Alien that it’s hard to choose favorites. But let me spotlight a couple I really like – their new Batman Animated Series figures and their Star Trek starships. One spectacular item is the new 11” classic Enterprise. Each item comes with intensely detailed guides that are produced by professionals who know their fandom.

Dan Gearino educates and entertains in Comic Shop The Retail Mavericks Who Gave Us a New Geek Culture, recently published by Ohio University’s Swallow Press. It’s an engaging read that explains the birth of comics’ direct market and also provides up-to-the-minute profiles of retailers and their comic stores.

In Lady Action: The Sand of Forever, author Ron Fortier delivered a thriller cocktail that’s one part Modesty Blaise, one part 007 and one part Indiana Jones. It gets even better, as Airship 27 just released the audio book version. I think Kalinda Little does a superb job reading it, but find out for yourself here.

Michael Eury’s Back Issue Magazine celebrates comics of the 70s, 80s and today with insightful articles and columns. Sometimes I’m afraid to pick up an issue because I can never put it down! An annual subscription http://tinyurl.com/BackIssueSub makes an enduring gift that fans will appreciate throughout the year.

FanSets is a company run by fans for fans – and it shows. They have created gorgeous enamel pins featuring characters from Star Trek, Valiant, DC, Harry Potter, Firefly and more. I am in awe of their choices for DC characters pins like the Golden Age Sandman, Saturn Girl, and the grown-up Robin of Earth Two. It’s hard not to agree with Star Trek fans that this series of pin, including Discovery, look incredible too. Available at your local comic shop (look for their new displays!) or FanSets.com.

John Siuntres’ Word Balloon Podcast offers one-on-one interviews with the industry’s most interesting creators. Siuntres, a longtime radio professional, knows how to get folks talking. I listen to this show to find out more from creators I like and to learn about new things from creators with whom I’m less familiar. The podcast is free, but you could make someone a part of the League of Word Balloon Listeners with a gift donation. Find out more at http://wordballoon.blogspot.com.

This fall, I bought a copy of Classic Comics Press’ Kelly Green: The Complete Collection by Stan Drake and Leonard Starr from Emil Novak at Queen City Comics. I promptly wrote about how much I enjoyed it. Classic Comics Press Publisher Charles Pelto does a great job with all his books and you can’t go wrong with any of them for gifting.

I haven’t completely finished Craig Yoe’s Super Weird Heroes even though I wrote about it earlier this year. That’s because it’s so much fun that I just don’t want it end. Another Yoe book, Behaving MADly is a refreshing read for hard core and casual fans. It’s a wonderful book all about the many MAD magazine knockoffs. I gifted a copy to my pal Walshy (who is completely nuts too) and he was thrilled.

The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide always seemed like a “must have,” but each year publisher J.C.Vaughn and his merry band make it even more and more “must have-ier”! I especially liked Jim Steranko’s Batman cover on this year’s edition. Oh wait, it’s another version of Batman!

All the best to you and yours this Yuletide Season!

Michael Davis: A Hard Day’s Night

davis-art-131001-4365445When I was around six, I was asked what kind of haircut I wanted.

This was big deal because up until then I had no say over anything in my life. This was my very first grown up decision and I had to weigh it carefully.

Even at six I knew this was a life changing moment. My mother told me to think about it while we were on the bus going to the barber shop. We lived in South Jamaica Queens at the time and except for church there was no place, no place as honored in the black community.

For me there were no two places I hated going to more than church and the barbershop.

What was there to like at the barbershop?

It smelled horrible from all the cigarette and cigar smoke mingled with the distinct smell of snuff being spat into a spittoon. For all of you not familiar with snuff, it’s a type of tobacco. People would put that gross shit in their mouths between their gums and lips and suck on it until the flavor was gone then spit it out before they popped in another jaw full.

Gross with a capital GROSS.

I know some people still do that and with all due respect-that shit is freakin GROSS.

A trip to the barber shop for me was a hellish journey to a smoke filled, snuff smelling spit fest. Oh,and least I forget, when snuff is spat it’s a dark brown / almost black liquid which had a good chance of missing the spittoon and landing on the six-year old sitting in the barber’s chair at the time.

That happened…to me…a lot.

So yeah, the barber shop was horrible and in retrospect, I must have liked church better. At church I was merely threatened with Hell if I wasn’t good. At the barbershop I was spat upon with black ooze, strapped to a chair while some creature took a motorized knife to my head.

The day I walked into the barbershop ready to answer my mom’s question as to what kind of haircut I wanted that particular Hell became Heaven to me for I was no longer a child I was no longer a kid, I was, heck, I don’t know what I was but I know I had respect.

Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any better, it did. The barber did not; I repeat did not sit me in the damn kiddy contraption that boosts the height of the child.

Nope.

Instead I sat (aided only by a telephone book which in my mind was no aid at all) in the barber’s chair all by myself.

But wait, there’s more!

When asked by the barber what kind of haircut was I to receive my mother told him to…wait for it…wait for it…wait for it…ask me!

At that moment I knew what I was, I was a man! A fact that was underscored by the barber when he looked at me (with what I could tell was a new respect) and asked, “Well little man, what kind of haircut would you like?”

The day kept getting better. Why? Because the entire barbershop, that to me looked like hundreds of people, heard him ask me and then heard my answer…“I’d like a Beatles haircut.”

The barbershop erupted in laughter…and just like that I was back in Hell.

“Little man, you’re black, didn’t anyone tell you?”

More laughter.

I knew I was black, but why that should stop me from getting a Beatles haircut was beyond me. So like the man I was I asked and then the laughter became physically painful to me and I started to cry.

Never again did I ask for a Beatles haircut and, in fact, I started asking questions before I made statements or asked certain things.

Yeah, I was six, but I wasn’t stupid.

What, pry tell does any of this has to do with comics?

Many, and I mean many “artists” have submitted work for a show I’m curating. Some of the art is just bad that’s OK compared to people just not reading or worst even not understand what they read in the call for entries instructions.

I’m just sick to death of aspiring artists and writers who refuse to do anything but draw or write. Their work, attitudes and professionalism need major overhauls and no matter how many times or how many ways you try and tell them they still assume they can get work in the fucking comic book industry.

Or they assume they can send you entire comic books (drawn in ball point pen) when the instructions call for no more than five submissions.

Learn your goddamn craft, people. Learn what you can and cannot do. Until you do you have as much chance of getting in this show or having a career in comics as you do getting a Beatles haircut in the hood.

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Tweeks!

 

Safe Space, by Elayne Riggs

I first came across the concept of "safe spaces" for women when I was in high school. I went to an all-girls religious school (yeshiva) in 9th and 10th grades. The idea didn’t make sense to me at the time, separating boys and girls just when they were beginning to find out about each other, to really relate to one another as fully-realized people. I was convinced then that the segregation could only come to no good, that we’d grow up completely lacking in social skills regarding how to communicate with the opposite sex, and that it was all doomed to end in tears.

And while I think I was partially correct, at least in my case, Bruriah was the first place I remember feeling this inexplicable sense of female safety (at least when the male instructors weren’t around), of proto-feminist solidarity. It even (temporarily) helped me break some bad personal habits, I’m pretty sure that was the first time I stopped biting my nails for an appreciable period. There was just something amazing about having all that support around me that made it seem anything was possible.

At Rutgers University in New Brunswick, I minored in feminism, which at the time was called Women’s Studies. So naturally, everyone assumed, and still does, that I attended not Rutgers College, but the University’s "female auxiliary" affiliate, Douglass. I didn’t go to Douglass, which by that time was trending from all-female to co-ed anyway. But it was still considered a relative safe space for women, and there were a number of Douglass students in my feminism classes. There, we learned that "safety" didn’t just mean shelter from potential violence (rape awareness was a big part of my curriculum, and I never did figure out why more of it wasn’t aimed at the gender that committed the most rapes — i.e., the guilty party — rather than the gender that was raped most often) but from male aggression in general, even when that aggression took the form of vigorous debate. We analyzed how women in co-ed classes and curricula tended to be more withdrawn and reticent than the men, who interrupted far more and were paid more academic (rather than prurient) attention by the instructors. Without so many men around to hog the limelight and make us feel scholastically intimidated, we were able to blossom more into our own diverse personalities. (more…)

59, by John Ostrander

  • News
  • April 24, 2008

Numbers represent. They don’t really mean.

Any meaning associated with numbers – or words for that matter – are what we assign to them. My social security number identifies me to the government but it’s not who I am. It has importance, yes, and if unscrupulous people get a hold of it, it can have a terrible impact on my life. It is not, however, my life. The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The road map is not itself the road.

I turned 59 last Sunday and I’ve asked myself “What does that mean? Am I different in any essential way than I was on Saturday?” No. “Do birthdays have meanings?” If we give them some – yes. I like to celebrate the birthdays of those close to me more than I like to celebrate my own. I celebrate the fact that they were born, that they entered this world, and I get to be a part of their lives. I don’t dislike my birthday; I don’t have a problem with having one. I am thankful for the thoughts and good wishes expressed and any excuse to have a double chocolate cake is a good one.

The real use to me of my birthday these days is a bit more meditative. The number 59 has meaning in context with numbers 1 to 58. They are mileposts in my journey thus far. Milepost thirty-three – my first published comic book work. I remember that because I was pleased to be a rookie at anything at 33. Milepost thirty-eight – I married Kim Yale. Talk about being a rookie! Milepost forty-seven – Kim died and the world collapsed only to begin again a few mileposts later with Mary Mitchell. Life goes on. Death gives way to new life. (more…)

In My Ears and In My Eyes (Part 2), by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • March 26, 2008

whirledpeace-8842297So as I was saying last week, by the time I hit college I went full-force into my first round of Beatlemania. I must have frequented my share of Beatlefests (as noted in the comments to last week’s column, there’s one coming up in NJ this weekend), but really only remember going to one because that’s where I got Harry Nilsson’s autograph, on the cover of his album A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (for a reason I no longer remember, I have Jimmy Webb’s autograph on the back). From what I hear, they’re still going on. But the Beatles started influencing pretty much everything else in my life.

I named my fictitious corporation Pen-Elayne (wordplay on "Penny Lane" and "the pen of Elayne") Enterprises, which pun I borrowed again for my weekly comics reviews Pen-Elayne for Your Thoughts and my current blog Pen-Elayne on the Web. Penny Lane really became my theme song; I’d always envisaged something I can only describe as God’s Hidden Camera following my every move, so the line "And though she feels as if she’s in a play, she is anyway" really resonated. Particularly now with Google’s Street View!

Having already gone through two years of Shakespeare in high school, I was primed to expand my Anglophilia, and the Beatles were a perfect outlet for my fascination of all things English. That interest has since culminated in marriage to an actual Englishman who, although four years my junior, is probably more knowledgeable about Beatles trivia than I’ll ever be, has hundreds of bootleg songs, keeps up on all the news items of what’s happening with their music, and generally makes my head spin. Oh, and even though Robin is a southern country boy, we like to goof around with pretty bad imitations of Liverpool accents (okay, his is better than mine, as you’d expect). Through Rob I also met artist Alan Davis and my lettering goddess Pat Prentice, who both share a birthday with Sir Paul. I seem to remember Alan introducing me to Pat by joking that she "sounds like Ringo," since she’s also from Mersey-way. (She doesn’t, although I find a female Liverpool accent as cute as a male one.)

(more…)

In My Ears and In My Eyes (Part 1), by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • March 19, 2008

Last week we were casting about, as usual, for something interesting to watch in the 100-200 channel range of our cable system. The local PBS stations were hip-deep in pledge drives, which meant 20-minute breaks between segments of shows that would otherwise have been enjoyable but which we’d mostly seen anyway by this point. (Did anyone else think it just a tad disconcerting that WLIW, the Long Island-based PBS station, could afford to send its two high muckety-mucks out to broadcast from Innsbruck during the pledge breaks for Visions of Austria, but made sure to keep reminding us that Viewers Like You made all that possible? Oh great, I should give to their station to sponsor their executives’ vacations?)

The few writers’ strike-delayed shows that we usually watch on the networks haven’t begun running new episodes, and in their place were the same tired crop of cringeworthy reality shows. Keith Olbermann and MSNBC are turning into FOX-lite (but that’s another column). And how many times can I watch the Ghana episode of Tony Bourdain’s No Reservations? (Not including subconscious reruns during REM sleep, approximately ten, but not consecutively; give me a break, Travel Channel!)

So it was that we found our way up the dial to a delightful programme all about amber hosted by "Dickie-Love’s" brother David Attenborough — and now little impressionable ol’ me suddenly wants some new amber earrings — which we then followed up with a Biography Channel episode on The Beatles’ Wives, which itself preceded two recent Paul McCartney concerts, one from 2005 and the other from 2007, on that same channel, both horribly chopped from the originals. And suddenly there I was, fascinated all over again. (more…)

Fanboy Meltdown: Picard Meets the Doctor

  • News
  • August 30, 2007

jean-luc-picard-9898202davidtennant-2070499Patrick Stewart, aka Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek : The Next Generation, is teaming up with David Tennant, aka the 10th Doctor of Doctor Who, in The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet. Tennant has the lead, Stewart does Claudius, and tickets will go faster than a Beatles reunion after Yoko drops dead.

Hamlet runs July 24 through November 15, 2008. Right after that, Tennant plays Berowne in Love’s Labor’s Lost, which, I believe, is a spin-off from last season’s "The Shakespeare Code" episode of Doctor Who, That show runs October 2 through November 15, 2008. So David will be a bit preoccupied next summer and fall.

If you’re planning on seeing either performance, get your passport ready. As one might assume, The Royal Shakespeare Company is in Britain.

 

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