Tagged: Christmas

Ed Catto’s 2020 Holiday Gift Guide, Part 1

It’s been a rough year for most of us, but in Geek Culture there have been plenty of bright spots. In the spirit of trumpeting some of the good stuff, here’s my Annual Holiday Gift Guide:

HOLLY JOLLY: CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS PAST IN POP CULTURE

Written by Mark Voger • TwoMorrows • 192 pp. • Hardcover, Full Color  • ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-097-7 • $43.95

Every yuletide season I trot out my copy of The Battle For Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum. For my money, that’s the best book out there to analyze and explain the many traditions that have shaped the way we celebrate  Christmas.  It’s clear to me that it’s time to make room on my coffee table this December for another impressive book.  TwoMorrows newest, Holly Jolly is kind of the pop-culture counterpart to the Nissenbaum’s authoritative tome. I really enjoy Mark Voger’s writing.  For example,  I grooved on his Groovy: When Flower Power Bloomed in Pop Culture (also published by TwoMorrows) not too long ago.

“I can’t think of a single topic that has generated more art and culture,” says author Mark Voger of why he decided to do a Christmas book. “From music to movies, TV, cartoons, food and decor, everybody seems to have a favorite Christmas ‘something’ — a delicacy or a song or an animated special. I tried to cram everything in Holly Jolly.”

Available everywhere books are sold, and from the publisher.

BRINA THE CAT: THE GANG OF THE FELINE SUN

By Giorgio Salati & Christian Cornia • Papercutz • 88 pp. • Paperback  • ISBN-10 : 1545804265 • $9.99

I tend to like just about everything imported from Italy, and this book, the first in the Brina the Cat series, is no exception.  This graphic novel is for everyone who’s ever had the slightest twinge of conflict in letting their cat out of the house. (Full disclosure: I’ve recently joined those ranks).  Lots of fun and you can’t go wrong with gifting this book to an 8 to 12 year old, but the audience is for all ages (and all cat lovers).

Available at books stores. comic shops and directly from the publisher, Papercutz.

THE ONLY LIVING GIRL #1 : THE ISLAND AT THE EDGE OF INFINITY

by David Gallaher and Steve Ellis • Papercutz • 72 pp. • Paperback  • ISBN-10 : 1545802033 • $8.99

You really have to fasten your figurative seatbelt before jumping into The Only Living Girl adventures. These books are a delightful showcase for two talented creators, writer David Gallaher and artist Steve Ellis. They won DC’s ZUDA contest years ago with High Moon, but like fine wine, they get better with age.

This new series, The Only Living Girl, picks up right after their brilliant The Only Living Boy stories.  Please note: reading all the prior books isn’t a must, and this fantastic book is the perfect jumping-on point for all age readers. In fact, there’s a page that gets everyone up to speed. And then… it’s off to the races!

Available at books stores, comic shops and directly from the publisher, Papercutz.

EDISON BEAKER, CREATURE SEEKER: THE LOST CITY

by Frank Cammuso • Viking, an imprint of Random House • 176 pp. • Hardcover  • ISBN-10: 0425291960 • $17.99

Frank Cammuso is an amazing creator: he teaches at Syracuse University, he makes comics as part of the AHOY team, and he creates fantastic all ages graphic novels. I just love his Edison Beaker, Creature Seeker series for its wild and crazy, breakneck action. Cammuso is the real deal with story and art – he has both a clever sense of humor and a wonderful line.

I also love these books for the smiles that inevitably grow bigger with every page you turn!

Available at books stores, comic shops and online here.

CULLEN BUNN OMNIBUS ALL MY LITTLE DEMONS: An AfterShock Library of Tales

by Cullen Bunn and assorted artists  • AfterShock Comics • 496 pp. • Hardcover  • ISBN-10: 1949028569 • $79.99

Prolific writer Cullen Bunn has created so many stories for Aftershock Comics. Now fan favorites like Knights Temporal, Brothers Dracul and Dark Ark are collected in this impressive hardcover.  This also includes many short stories previously seen only in the Aftershock Anthologies.

Available at bookstores, comic shops, and at ComicsCity.

ASH & THORN VOLUME ONE: RECIPE FOR DISASTER

by Mariah McCourt, Soo Lee, Pippa Bowland and Jill Thompson • AHOY Comics • 120 pp. • Paperback • ISBN-10: 1952090008 • $16.99

Believe it or not, my mom (she’s in her late 70s) was flipping through some of my comics recently. (I had left some on her coffee table during a recent visit.) When she saw an ad for AHOY’s Ash & Thorn comic, she paused and really examined it. I think she was intrigued to see two protagonists who looked like her in a comic ad.

And yes, that’s the conceit of this series. To save the world this time, instead of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or young King Arthur, a retired art teacher is recruited.  It’s wry fun served up in what is becoming that AHOY signature style. And that’s not all that’s served up; the heroine’s baking recipes are also included in this trade paperback collecting all five issues of the series.

Available at comic shops and fine bookstores and Midtown Comics’ online site.

THE FANTASTIC PAINTINGS OF FRAZETTA

by J. David Spurlock • Vanguard Publishing • 120 pp. • paperback • ISBN-10: 1934331813 • $39.95

Despite the calamitous nature of 2020, my wife and I were able to visit the Frank Frazetta Museum this summer. It was a wonderful trip, and I am still in awe of all of the amazing paintings we saw there.  Reading this oversized coffee table book is like a V.I.P. guided tour in that museum.  Spurlock provides just enough background and reference so that anyone can appreciate Frazetta’s talent and creativity. In fact, I wrote about this book earlier this year, and you can read that here.

My Highest Recommendation

Available at bookstores, comic shops, the Frazetta Museum and directly from Vanguard, the publisher.

FLASH GORDON: THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE FILM

by John Walsh • Titan Books • 120 pp. • Hardcover • ISBN: 978-1789095067 • $42.51

Way back in college, I had a great pal with a fantastic vinyl collection. Squeeze was one of his favorite bands and became one of my favorites too.  When he learned that I liked comics, he pulled out this Flash Gordon soundtrack. He worshipped this album.   And in those pre-DVD/streaming days, we kind of thought that listening to that album would be the closest I got to seeing the movie again.

Fast forward (a VHS term) to the 40th anniversary of the film, and UK publisher Titan delivers a wonderful new Flash Gordon book.

Film historian John Walsh discovered and presents many untold stories of this Flash Gordon film, including visions of the proposed sequels, that are bound to raise eyebrows  – on both Earth and Mongo. And the author managed to engage in deep conversations with almost all of the original cast or surviving family members.

Flash Gordon isn’t only about Alex Raymond, you know.

This book just burst onto the scene at UK and US bookstores. Flash Gordon: The Official Story of the Film is also available directly from Titan Books.

ZLONK! ZOK! ZOWIE! The Subterranean Blue Grotto Guide to Batman ’66 Season One

Edited by Jim Beard • Crazy 8 Press • 206 pp. • Paperback • ISBN-13: 979-8621575373 • $12.99

Batman stuff and gifting have been going together like Christmas cookies and milk for as long as I can remember.  Writer Jim Beard has gathered together a “rogue’s gallery” of writers and artists (and I was proud to be included) to celebrate the first season of the old Batman ’66 show. This collection of clever essays and illustrations have been so well received, in fact, that there’s a sequel in the works.

Available at comic shops, fine bookstores and online.

Have a wonderful Yuletide, gang!

Dennis O’Neil: Party On, Santa!

Saturnalia

Did someone say war against Christmas? If there is one, General Custer must be leading the charge. The season to be jolly is upon us and unless you find somewhere that’s very, very remote, and you leave your laptop at home, you won’t escape it, and the astute, or the cynical, among you will notice that it’s more about greed and profit than religion. There are a lot more Santas on the streets (and on the television and in the magazines and newspapers and candy wrappers and and and… ) than Baby Jesuses.

This is not news.

For at least a century, mammon and the Savior have been sharing year’s end. They’re crammed together in a season that grows longer every year and Santa’s elbows are bigger and sharper. The Lord is still present but, you know, kind of an afterthought – the kid in the corner.

In days of yore – extremely yore – the church was often the biggest building in the village because worship was considered the most important of communal activities. Everybody went to pray. Now… hey, anyone feel like comparing the house of God to the shopping mall?

But don’t come looking for the grinch at my back yard. Despite what some of you may have concluded after reading the paragraphs preceding this one, and despite what a Fox News pundit might say, I am not a Christmas hater. I think that it, in its various guises, is a genuine holiday, one that has served an evolutionary need.

We celebrate the holiday because it is useful. It is a festival of light and it comes when the trees are bare, the fields barren, and each today is shorter than yesterday. Somewhere deep inside, where our primal selves live, we’re scared. What if the sun shortens to extinction? What if the world will be forever cold?

Our ancestors found an answer. Have a party! Laughter and feasting and song and gifts and, yes, light, and feel the gloom lessen and hope begin.

Once, it was called Saturnalia. Now – Christmas. Next?

And if the buying and selling smothers the hope? Not good. Because we haven’t evolved past needing that hope.

Or at least I haven’t.

 

Alex Kingston Returns to Doctor Who

  • News
  • September 2, 2015

The BBC is giving us all a grand Christmas present – Alex Kingston will return to Doctor Who for the Christmas special as The Doctor’s Paramour and assassin, River Song.

Day one of filming the eleventh Doctor Who Christmas special starts this week and is written by lead writer and executive producer, Steven Moffat, produced by Nikki Wilson and directed by Douglas Mackinnon (Doctor Who, Sherlock).

Award-winning Alex Kingston comments on her reappearance:

“To be honest, I did not know whether River would ever return to the show, but here she is, back with the Doctor for the Christmas special. Steven Moffat is on glittering form, giving us an episode filled with humor and surprise guest castings. I met Peter for the first time at Monday’s read-through, we had a laugh, and I am now excited and ready to start filming with him and the Doctor Who team. Christmas in September?, why not!”

Steven Moffat, lead writer and executive producer adds:

“Another Christmas, another special for Doctor Who – and what could be more special than the return of Alex Kingston as Professor River Song. The last time the Doctor saw her she was a ghost. The first time he met her, she died. So how can he be seeing her again? As ever, with the most complicated relationship in the universe, it’s a matter of time …”

gz7g8-300x240-1622722River Song’s timeline with The Doctor has always been a topic of great discussion among fans.  From her point of view, her first appearance in Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead was the last time she saw The Doctor, having died and all.  Up until the recent episode The Name of the Doctor, all of River’s appearances have been from earlier in her life / timeline – only in the latest one have we seen her from after the events of that first (well, I say “first”…) meeting.  So there’s no knowing from whence we’ll be seeing her appear this time.

As fans of their relationship know, there’s one very important moment we’ve yet to see – The Doctor has not yet presented her with the souped-up version of the sonic Screwdriver she used with such style in the Library. And considering Christmas is traditionally when presents are exchanged, who’s to say this isn’t when it’ll happen?

Curse you, Moffat, we haven’t even gotten to the premiere of the new season (September 19, as if you didn’t know) and you’ve already got us looking ahead to Christmas.

 

Tweeks: Tween Holiday Gift Guide

grid-8545197With only a couple weeks until Christmas, we Tweeks can’t stop thinking about what we’ll be getting (because duh…we’ve been totally good this year). But it’s also come to our attention that we’re not easy to give gifts to.  Anya prefers digital comics and Maddy can’t watch DVDs on her laptop, but you can’t unwrap a something that doesn’t physically exist.  So this where we talk about why today’s tweens are hard to shop for, ponder if buying fandom merch should be a personal purchase, and give some ideas on how to present the kids in your life with presents they will love.  We also have a companion Pinterest board with recommendations (& a peek at our wish list) if you haven’t done your shopping yet!

Benedict Cumberbatch with Christmas stories for you

  • News
  • December 25, 2013

all-i-want-for-christmas-is-benedict-cumberbatch-american-apparel-unisex-baseball-tee-white-red-w760h760-6272659

Benedict Cumberbatch gives us a Christmas reading of “A Visit From St. Nicholas”:

Oh, all right– here’s what you really want to see today, the preview episode of the next season of Sherlock, “Many Happy Returns’:

Sherlock happily returns January 1 in the UK, and the 19th on PBS in the US.

Oh, and did we mention the BBC is rerunning the audio play of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere for this week, starring Mr. C.? We didn’t? Well, we did now. Go. Listen. Enjoy, along with

Doctor Who cast share their thoughts on “The Time of the Doctor”

  • News
  • December 25, 2013

bosj8c2-5255859With Matt Smith’s final episode (well, until the hundredth anniversary, anyway) imminent, the cast (and showrunner Steven Moffat) sat down to talk about their thoughts about the Christmas adventure.  Guest Orla Brady (Tasha Lem) also discusses her experience with the show, and her experience with new Doctor, Peter Capaldi.  Read on for the juicy details.

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Michael Davis: Late? I’ll Give You Late!

davis-art-131224-150x168-6521812December 7th 2013, a date that will live in infamy, the United Parcel Service was suddenly and deliberately attacked by its own ground and air forces and soon beat themselves into a very dark place a place made of their own stupidity.

It’s Christmas. The time of love, peace and goodwill towards men.

Mike Gold is going to kill me.

I’m sending this in on Monday night, which for me on the west coast is 9 pm (ish) but for him it’s after midnight on his east coast. No, I did not wait until the last minute because I forgot or had nothing to write.

I waited for the last minute hoping to hear good news from my boy, Denys Cowan. UPS had promised good news regarding the disappearance of his most cherished pieces of art.

None came.

Imagine, if you will, being in love with the one person you have dreamt of all your life.

Imagine the love of your life leaving you for someone else. Imagine the hurt and pain you will have to endure knowing that he or she is lost to you forever. You tell yourself you will get over it and there will be other loves, other moments indeed other milestones but the love you lost was the love of your life.

Gone. Forever. But…

One day you get a call. It’s the love of your life. They have a glorious surprise for you. No, another is no longer keeping them away from you, they won’t say why or how but they will say when they will see you again and it’s tomorrow!

Tomorrow comes and it’s today!

No lover, nothing.

It’s Christmas and you want to believe the non-committal message you received (not from the love of your life but a third party) saying they are still coming just wait.

Then you think…wait for what?

All you have been told is to expect a glorious surprise. That does not mean they are coming back to you. It could mean any of a million different things.

It could mean that of the 29 pieces of irreplaceable art they are sending nine totally fucked up pieces and expect you to be grateful.

It’s Christmas, Denys his son and I started a sort of tradition of going to the mall for last minute before Christmas shopping.

That didn’t happen this year.

No. Instead UPS continues to think they are dealing with someone and something they can “handle.”

Pity.

I bare UPS no ill will. They are a global zillion-dollar mega company. Denys and I want nothing but the return of his art.

But we have been told all sorts of things (after they got served by a well thought out and predicted outrage from thousands), which, like today just, have not rung true.

UPS is moving mountains (now) to make this right. Problem is I think, they think right is something they decide.

It’s not.

Right, the only right is the return of every single piece of Denys Cowan art in the same condition it left.

Anything less is an attempt to replace the love of his artistic life with some skank gold digging bitch that’s keeps asking what Brown can do for her.

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

 

Mindy Newell: Every Time A Bell Rings

newell-art-131223-150x138-7484730As promised last week, here’s the list of my favorite Christmas movies, starting with all my very favorite-est…

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946). Directed by Frank Capra, who declared it his favorite of all his films and showed it every Christmas at his home, it stars James Stewart as “everyman” George Bailey, Donna Reed as his wife Mary Hatch Bailey, Lionel Barrymore as the banker Mr. Potter, and a veritable Who’s Who of notable character actors, including Beulah Bondi as Ma Bailey, Thomas Mitchell as Uncle Billy, Ward Bond as Bert the cop, Frank Faylen as Ernie the cab driver, Gloria Grahame as Violet the “bad” girl, Sheldon Leonard as Nick the bartender, and Harry Travers in the pivotal role of the angel Clarence Odbody. The story of an ordinary man who lives an ordinary life, driven to despair of having his dreams crushed once and for all as he faces bankruptcy and prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and who discovers that after all he has lived a wonderful life – “Dear George: Remember no man is a failure who has friends. P.S. Thanks for the wings! Love, Clarence.” – leaves me weepy every time I see it.

Miracle On 34th Street (1947) “Do you believe in Santa?” Doris Walker is a divorcee who is the events director at Macy’s, and a woman, hurt by a marriage that ended in divorce instead of happily-ever-after, is raising her daughter, Susan (Natalie Wood), in a no-nonsense, there are no such things are Santa Claus manner. Stuck when the Santa she hired for the Thanksgiving Day parade is found stinkin’ drunk below his float, Doris hires Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) as the store’s Santa. Kris is the most successful Santa the store has ever had, and Doris is basking in the shadow of his success, until it is discovered that there is just one small problem – Mr. Kringle actually believes he is Santa. The old man is taken to Bellevue’s psychiatric ward, and is in danger of being committed, but Doris’s earnest suitor, Fred Payne, is a lawyer, and defends Kris in court. The judge decides (for political expediency) that Kris is the real Santa. Everyone celebrates at a party on Christmas Eve, except for Susan, who doesn’t believe Kris is Santa (“you’re just a nice old man with a beard.”) because he could not give her what she wanted for Christmas. Driving home from the party with her mother and Fred on a route given to them by Kris in order to avoid holiday traffic, Susan suddenly yells for Fred to stop the car. She jumps out and runs into a house with a “For Sale” sign in the yard – the home she asked Kris for. While Susan is exploring the house, Fred discovers that Doris told Susan that she must believe in Kris, that she must have faith. His own faith in Doris renewed, he proposes, Doris accepts, and they decide to buy the house. Then Fred declares himself a great lawyer for having done the impossible, “proving” that Kris is Santa Claus.  But then he and Doris discover a cane that looks just like the one belonging to Kris, leaning up against the fireplace…

The film was condemned and placed on the banned list by the Catholic Legion of Decency because the character, Doris Walker, was divorced. This fact adds to my love of the movie.

The Bishop’s Wife (1947). Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young star in this romantic comedy from Samuel Goldwyn and directed by Henry Koster about a angel named Dudley (Grant) come to earth to help Bishop Henry Brougham (Niven) in his obsessive quest to build a new cathedral to the glory of God. Dudley reveals his true identity to Henry (who doesn’t really believe him), but not his true purpose, which is to heal the rift between the bishop and his wife, Julie (Young) and young daughter. There’s just one fly in the ointment – Dudley finds he is falling in love with Julia. Though Julia remains oblivious, Henry senses the truth, and, jealous, tells Dudley that as an angel, he’s no angel, and demands to know why Dudley hasn’t delivered on the cathedral. Dudley tells him that he didn’t pray for a cathedral, but for guidance.

Mr. Magoo’s “Christmas Carol” (1962). This has disappeared off of television, probably because Mr. Magoo’s near-blindness as something funny is no longer politically correct, but when I was a kid, this animated musical was something that glued me to the set. The original songs are by Broadway maestros Julie Styne and Robert Merrill, who started their collaboration on Funny Girl after finishing “Christmas Carol,” and I can still sing parts of many of them: “Ringle-ringle, coins when they jingle make such a lovely sound”

And “Alone in the World” is a melody whose lyrics reflect the loneliness of young Ebeneezer, left behind at boarding school at Christmas holiday, as Magoo, as the elder Scrooge brought back to his youth by the Spirit of Christmas Past, sings poignantly with his younger self: A hand for each hand was planned for the world, Why don’t my fingers reach? Millions of grains of sand in the world, Why such a lonely beach?”

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965).  The tree that nobody wanted. And the music by the Vince Guarldi Trio. “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

TUESDAY MORNING: Jen Krueger

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Watch the “Doctor Who” Christmas episode trailer

  • News
  • December 11, 2013

under-strict-embargo-until-00-01-on-11-december-2013-gmtdoctor-who-xmas-special-2013The Time of the Doctor, this year’s Christmas special, and the final episode to star Matt Smith, has only become more tantalizing not that the BBC has released its first trailer.

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Still Not Ginger – Peter Capaldi is the New Doctor

  • News
  • August 4, 2013

tumblr_mr0ricofvl1rq8cpeo6_500-9609501Announced at the climax of a globally-broadcast special, The BBC introduced the twelfth actor to play The Doctor, Peter Capaldi.

He’s a BAFTA-winning actor, winning for the role of Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It.  He’s appeared twice on Who-related series, he played Caecilius in The Fires of Pompeii, and John Frobisher in Torchwood: Children of Earth.  In Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, he played the angel Islington.  He is currently filming the BBC adaptation of the Three Musketeers, in which he plays Cardinal Richelieu.

Showrunner Steven Moffat says he’d considered Capaldi when he was casting the eleventh Doctor, though he decided it wasn’t quite the time.

This wasn’t  his first time traveling in time, either – He played Doug Hatton in the recurring sketch “Drunk in Time” on The All new Alexei Sayle Show.

Peter most recently appeared in World War Z, playing a physician working with the World Health Organization.  Or, as he’s listed on the IMDB, “WHO Doctor“.

No details have been yet shared as to how much a part he will played in the final two episodes of the year. Though it’s traditional for the new Doctor to only appear in the last moments of the last episode, the Christmas episode has not been filmed, and David Tennant made his first full appearance in the first Christmas episode, “The Christmas Invasion”.

Mr. Capaldi’s movements will likely be closely followed, and any appearance he makes in the Christmas episode will likely be widely reported.  The Management awaits his work with extreme interest.

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