Tagged: ComicMix

Darn you, Westinghouse!

  • News
  • October 21, 2007

On this day in 1925, the first photoelectric cell was publicly demonstrated by the Westinghouse Electric and Mfg. Co. at the Electrical Show at Grand Central Palace in New York.  That palace no longer exists, having been replaced by an office tower, but it seems photoelectrics will always be with us in one way or another.  Heck, you’re probably soaking in them right now.  And with that cheery thought in mind, here’s your weekly one-stop ComicMix columnist shopping:

As you can see in our previous item, Ric is across the ocean from us, probably having the time of his life, and will return next week.  And now to return to my current masters, the television/DVD combo…

Judd Aptow, Will Ferrell, and Gunsmoke

  • News
  • October 21, 2007

If you’re like me, you are already bored with most of the new TV season, there certainly aren’t any movies that are compelling me to buy a $10 ticket and Countdown is making my head hurt. Best way to solve it all – let’s go to the web:

TV Land has relaunched its website here adding full-episode streaming of classic shows like The Andy Griffith Show, Leave It To Beaver and Gunsmoke. Be sure to check out the music player featuring songs, commercials and movie themes and then look fort another upgrade on the site scheduled to launch Nov. 1.

Go to Scud creator Rob Schrab’s website here for more info and previews on how he is concluding the book with that four-part miniseries. Incidentally, the guest covers on those issues will be:

    #22 – Jim Mahfood (March 2008) “Challenge of the Over-Used Muse”

    #23 – David Hartman (April 2008) “Retaliation of the Over-Used Muse”

    #24 – Doug Tennapel (May 2008) “Death of the Over-Used Muse”

You have just over a week left to bid here on one (or all) of the charity auctions benefiting The Hero Initiative, featuring lunch with Marvel Comics Legend John Romita Sr.  The events themselves will take place November 27-30 in New York City and, as a special bonus, John will be accompanied by his wife, Virginia Romita, on each of these events (Virginia was the longtime production manager at Marvel Comics) and each of the winners will also receive a Romita head sketch of your favorite character over lunch. (more…)

Mothership Connection, by Martha Thomases

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  • October 20, 2007

There’s been a lot of conversation lately in the girls’ section of the comics blogosphere about the way women’s lives are depicted in superhero comics. Even so-called strong, independent female characters are little more than an excuse to show tits’n’ass. Some site evidence that female characters are used as plot points, citing the “women in refrigerators” syndrome. More recently, discussions have centered on the premise that married characters are boring.

A lot of this is a reflection of the larger pop culture, which is at least as male-dominated as comics. The people who can greenlight movies, or put a television show on a network, are most likely Penile-Americans. Book publishing tends to be more diverse because there are more women in positions of authority, and (this is related) book publishing tends to pay less than other mass media.

Most of it, however, is lazy pandering to the perceived target audience. It’s assumed that boys find the single life more glamorous and more exciting than marriage. Up to a point, I agree. The thrill of the chase is, well, a thrill. That said, even the new gets old after a while. Dashiell Hammett used Nick and Nora Charles to show that marriage can be sexy and fun. Why can’t comics? (more…)

Writing Under the Influence, by John Ostrander

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  • October 18, 2007

Nothing is created in a vacuum. Though the artist may like to think that the work springs forth Zeus-like full blown from their brow, the truth is any number of different other works influence your own. The works that move and affect us as artists also teach and guide us in our own expression. 

We prize originality but it is said there’s only x amount of plots when you boil them all down (the number has varied according to who is defining it, but it’s usually low) and they were all created by the Greeks. The greatest writer in the English language – William Shakespeare – rarely came up with original plots, most usually re-working older plays or tales from history. What is original often is how you combine the elements.

Imitation is the starting point for what you eventually become. In writing, you become influenced by certain writers because of the types of stories they tell, or their command of language, or the depth of their themes and thought or even just their success or all of it together. It is through imitation, I think, that we truly learn such things as structure. With writing, you can take all the classes and read all the books but, ultimately, you really only learn how to write by writing.  Hopefully, as you grow older and wiser – better – you discard the overt forms that you imitate to find your own voice, your own style. What starts out as something that you borrow has to become something that you own.

GrimJack began that way. As a writer, I very much fall into the camp of wanting to write because of the pleasure I’ve had in reading, especially certain writers. I’ve noted elsewhere that GrimJack was created as a cross between hard-boiled detectives and sword-and-sorcery heroes (making him what I sometimes laughingly refer to as a “hard-boiled barbarian”) but I haven’t talked about which sword-and-sorcery heroes went into the mix. Some might assume Robert E. Howard’s Conan but I’ve always been more drawn to Solomon Kane, Howard’s Puritan wanderer/adventurer. Conan as a character isn’t very reflective; Kane was, even though he was driven by a wanderlust that he couldn’t explain. (more…)

Cap In The Saddle Again

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  • October 16, 2007

O.K. By now you’re heard that "Captain America" will be returning to Captain America, in issue #34. Place your orders today, folks!

I have no problem with Cap’s return. It was inevitable. That’s fine. I don’t know if it’ll be Steve Rogers resurrected; I certainly hope not. That sort of shoddy storytelling got tiresome about 20 years ago. Like the flag and the nation for which he was named, Captain America endures and that’s fine by me.

I’m not going to join the loud chorus of nay-sayers who have been pooping all over Alex Ross’s brand-new costume design. Cap’s got a gun and a knife? Bg deal. He’s a soldier, remember? If a gun was good enough for Alex Schaumberg, it’s good enough for Ross and for me.

However, there is a storytelling problem here. If the costume is so vital that it must survive as the skin of another, as it had before in the 1950s, then why change the costume? I guess we’ll find out. I hope we’ll find out. (more…)

Teaching Behind The Eightball, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • October 15, 2007

I’ve lived in Connecticut for the past 22 years, and I’ll admit I’m hardly the most loyal of Nutmeggers. It’s very pretty up here, once you get out of its typically American cities, but some of the people tend to be a bit self-absorbed and snooty. But before this past week, I could not say I was actually embarrassed to live here. Here’s the story.

29 year-old teacher Nathan Fisher used to run an English class at Guilford High. As we all recall, part of an English teacher’s job is to assign various types of reading assignments. He assigned one of his students – a girl, which I think is significant to the story – a comic book, Daniel Clowes’ Eightball #22. Another student freaked, the parents started a crusade, the board of education got involved, the police were called, the state Department of Children and Families was called in, and the comic book was labeled pornographic. In short order, Mr. Fisher was forced to resign.

He was, according to the Hartford Courant, a well-respected teacher who previously had received praise from his superiors. Loren Sterman, a Guilford parent who coincidentially works as a school counselor in New London, told the Courant’s Rick Green "He is someone who cares deeply about children’s literacy and who looks for ways to hook them into reading. That’s what he did for my daughter."

The police found no cause for hysteria. The Department of Children and Families found no cause for action. This is significant; I’ve worked with the Connecticut DCF on Head Start and related issues, and to my experience it would be difficult to find a prissier or more bureaucratic bunch of ass-coverers. They’ll fine you for hiccupping in a swimming pool, and they found nothing. (more…)

More fall classics

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  • October 14, 2007

Our readers aren’t the only ones falling for ComicMix‘s new format. We Phase I-ers are really excited over Phase II as well; that handy-dandy Latest News search box has made doing these weekly wrap-ups easier than ever!  And the powers that be aren’t done tinkering yet!  Here’s what our columnists have offered you this past week:

And don’t forget to click on Mellifluous Mike Raub‘s latest Big ComicMix Broadcasts over there on the right!

Is Snappy Sammy Smoot The Real Fishhead?

  • News
  • October 12, 2007

Our pal and ComicMix columnist and Fishhead co-writer Michael H. Price sent me one of those "seperated at birth" things… sort of a crossover between his Fishhead and our first Munden’s Bar story, as produced by John Ostrander and Skip Williamson. The beauty on the left is called "Snappy Sammy Smoot," he’s a long-time hero of the underground comix, and is copyright 2007 Skip Williamson.

Check out both features – for free – right here at ComicMix. Just click the comics tab on the home page!

 

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John Ostrander: Obit the Living

  • News
  • October 11, 2007

tp1902-5593800Obits – obituaries – are tough things to write. Their purpose is to commemorate the life of someone recently deceased, to list their accomplishments and achievements, to take note that someone has passed out of our lives. A last fanfare to the life of someone who is gone. Generally speaking, they are valedictory and complimentary.

Why do we wait until after a person has passed away to stand up and say these things? Okay, it might embarrass the person we’re talking about to hear the nice things we might say – and mean – about them but they’ll get over it. And they might like to hear them.

All of which is prelude to the fact that I am about to embarrass someone – a fellow member of ComicMix. Ladies and germs, let’s talk about Mr. Dennis O’Neil.

ComicMix readers tend to be a pretty knowledgeable lot, I’ve discovered. Unlike some comic book fans, they know their comic book history and know it extends prior to Marvel’s Civil War or DC’s Infinite Crisis. If you already know most of what I’m about to tell you, sorry – but I’m speaking for the record and for people who may not know Denny as well as they might or should.

(more…)

Phasing in with more to come

  • News
  • October 7, 2007

Wow, it’s been some week for ComicMix, and we appreciate all the kind words of support and terrific reviews we’ve seen so far!  Please let us know where you’ve seen our comics discussed, we don’t want to miss any feedback!  In the meantime, here’s your weekly wrapup of our regular columns:

As you can see, Mellifluous Mike Raub‘s Big ComicMix Broadcasts are now all accessible right from our front page, so no need to recap them here any more; just scroll down on the right sidebar and there they are!  In fact, it just so happens that all of the above columns can currently be accessed from our section entitled "More Comics News" at the bottom of our front page, mixed in with our news items.  Can a separate column archives be far behind?  Well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?

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