Tagged: comics

Happy Birthday: Al Wiesner

shaloman1-7680110Born in Philadelphia in 1930, Al Wiesner loved comic books as a boy but noticed a curious thing—there were plenty of Jewish writers and artists but no Jewish main characters.

At the tender age of 48 he decided to correct this deficiency, and released Mark 1 Comics, starring the mighty Shaloman! He has been writing and drawing the Kosher Crusader ever since.

In March 2007 KewlJu.com, a subsidiary of RJB Broadcast Corp., announced that it had signed a deal to take over the publication of Mark 1 Comics. Wiesner stayed on as the book’s artist and writer.

 

J.G. Jones on ‘Wanted,’ ‘Final Crisis’ and his Newspaper Background

31_26_jgjonesinpaper1_z-1420866So far, the one saving grace of DC’s Final Crisis has been the superlative artwork of J.G. Jones, previously best known for his stunning covers to DC’s weekly series 52 and the art in Mark Millar’s Wanted.

Out of the "little known fact" department comes a profile of Jones in the Brooklyn Paper, where he previously worked as, among other things, an editorial cartoonist. I wish the paper would’ve reprinted more of his cartoons, but at least they pulled from the archives the one seen at right, which shows some skillful inkwork and an economic use of space to push a complex story.

The article is quite a good read, touching on many interesting subjects, including how the newspaper experience helped Jones succeed in comics.

“There’s no question that creating on deadline is the best experience,” Jones told The Brooklyn Paper via phone from his West Orange, N.J. home. “It’s the same thing in comic books. Just like at The Paper, we have some very long nights.”

Back in his glory days at The Paper’s old headquarters at 26 Court St., Jones worked part-time while he pursued his larger dream: to be a painter.

Ah, but that dream, like so many other dreams that newspaper people cling to like battered childhood dolls, never quite worked out.

(via Journalista)

‘My Name Is Bruce’ Gets Release Date… and Sequel!

my-name-is-bruce-1600038While it’s not exactly comics-related (though Dark Horse Entertainment will serve as distributor), it’s still big news for just about every comics fan I know: Yes, Bruce Campbell’s next film, My Name Is Bruce, finally has a release date!

ShockTillYouDrop.com, who spoke with Dark Horse president Mike Richardson during the Saturn Awards last week, has reported the film is due out in October. Directed by Campbell himself, and featuring a script by Mark Verheiden, the film’s plot involves the real-life Bruce Campbell being mistaken for the character he played in his Evil Dead films and forced to fight a demon in order to save a town.

The film was first screened almost a year ago, but a string of delays caused many to doubt whether it would ever be seen in theaters.

But that’s not all, according to the movie website:

Richardson said that a sequel, titled My Name is Still Bruce, is in the works as well. Dark Horse Entertainment and Image Entertainment will distribute both films.

Groovy.

(Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)

 

(via Cinematical)

 

ComicMix Radio: Lots of New Comics and a New Place to Put Them!

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of ComicMix Radio was initially scheduled to go live yesterday, but was delayed due to some technical issues. When you listen to the broadcast, please close your eyes and pretend it is Tuesday for maximum effect. -RM]

Back from Wizard World we have a few more bits o’ news to share plus our weekly run down of new comics and DVDs. Then we unveil a new way to clean up those piles of comics you have all over the place.

And where does Vampire Hunter D fit in? Press the button and you’ll see!

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-6134037 or RSS!

 

Review: ‘Prince of Persia: The Graphic Novel’

prince-of-persia-7562889Prince of Persia: The Graphic Novel
By Jordan Mechner, A.B. Sina, LeUyen Pham, and Alex Puvilland
First Second, September 2008, $18.95

The first [[[Prince of Persia]]] game was a 2-D platformer almost twenty years ago, and the next big thing with the name Prince of Persia on it will be a major Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie next summer. In between have been a number of games, with a number of different protagonists and plotlines. (And I’ve played exactly none of them, as far as I can remember – just to make that clear.) This year, in between the games and the movie, First Second is publishing a graphic novel loosely based on the series – or at least the title. It’ll be in stores in September.

This graphic novel is credited as “created” by Mechner (seemingly because he invented the original game, and maybe still owns a piece of it), written by Sina, and with art by Pham and Puvilland. And, as far as I can tell, the story here has nothing specific to do with any of the previous incarnations of Prince of Persia. (If I’m wrong, please correct me in comments.)

In this graphic novel, you actually get two stories for the price of one – they’re told intermingled, though, which can make it difficult to remember which story a particular panel belongs to, or which characters belong to which stories. (Evil, nasty overlords being depressingly common in stories like this, for example.) I did read Prince of Persia in bound galley form, though – without color – so it’s quite possible that the palette of the two stories are different enough to make that distinction clear in the final book.

(more…)

‘Hancock’ Reviews Not Looking Too Good

A friend happened to catch an advance screening of Hancock recently and sent over some thoughts. I’ve been looking forward to Will Smith’s latest big summer movie, but my friend, Laura, came away none too impressed.

Here’s what she had to say:

It was disappointing. During the first half hour I had some high hopes, since the movie seemed to be bringing up all these interesting themes about what it means to be extraordinary, and have that extraordinariness isolate you from everyone else. Not to mention all these Ayn Randian ideas about how the un-extraordinary people (the looters, I guess) act as though they have a complete right over the talents of the extraordinary — they take it for granted and make bitchy demands of it, even though it doesn’t belong to them.

But then the latter half of the movie pretty much crapped all over its own promising beginnings, and ended up bringing up all this random shit that didn’t really get worked out. I was annoyed, and wouldn’t recommend seeing it.

Knowing almost nothing about the movie ahead of time, I think I let my expectations balloon up during that first 45 minutes or so — so if you go in not expecting more than a mindless fun ride, you might not be so disappointed. But even with adjusted expectations, I’d be surprised if anyone walked out of the theater all enraptured with it.

In case you think Laura might just be a Debbie Downer, the hate is coming for Hancock from plenty of others too. My favorite headlines so far: ‘Hancock’ a Super Zero and ‘Hancock’ is a Super Mess.

We’ll see if this leads to a spate of "Leave the comic book movies to comic book people" stories.

Dennis O’Neil’s Moving Words

Sunday afternoon. Two hundred and four days left before he gallops on back to Texas and that consarn brush that always seems to need clearing.

Listen, I want to make an offer… George and Laura, if you need help moving, just give me a call. I can be at the White House in five or six hours and, sure, I’m not as young as I once was, but I can still lift a box or two, and I’ll be more than happy to buy the pizza.

And now for something completely different…

Last week, we mentioned crossovers – specifically, how Marvel’s movie division seems to be getting ready to emulate the comic book division’s old, old ploy and engage in crossovers. The trick, as I’m sure you know, is simple: take a lead character from one series and put said character into another. Comics have, as mentioned in the earlier column, have been doing crossovers for a long time, probably beginning with Sub-Mariner and The Human Torch hassling in the early 40s. I’m not counting DC’s Justice Society title, which assembled a small herd of super doers, because these guys and gal weren’t moving into each other’s magazines, but into a separate venue. (Does anyone know of any crossing over earlier than that of Subby and The Torch?)

It didn’t stop with the comics, even way back then. About once a year, Batman and Robin took over bad-guy-catching chores from the radio version of Superman for a week or two while the Man of Steel was indisposed and the actor who voiced him, Bud Collyer, took a vacation.

(more…)

New York Times Profiles Comics Art Collectors

  • News
  • June 30, 2008

batmankillingjokespecialalanmoorebr-4924521Comics have long been a haven for collectors, that niche of consumers who’ll drop six figures on an old Disney issue or a near-mint of a Golden Age superhero.

As comics are becoming less of a disposable form of entertainment, the issues are increasingly common. So individual issues are no longer a hot commodity.

I don’t see it as a new trend, but The New York Times saw fit to devote a lengthy story to the new target of comics collectors — original artwork. The article mentions how originals were once used to sop up ink stains, but they’ve gradually become more and more valuable, to the point that they’re now selling for inordinately high prices.

Collectors of original comic-book art sound like a subculture within a subculture, and that’s fine with many aficionados. “There was a thrill in finding something nerdier than collecting comics,” said David Mandel, 37, an executive producer of the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” who first bought original art during a visit to the San Diego Comic-Con in 1995.

Mr. Mandel has pieces that would make many fans drool, like the cover, by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, of Giant-Size X-Men from 1975, which trumpeted Wolverine, Storm and others as the new incarnation of the mutant team, and the 1982 cover of Daredevil No. 181, by Frank Miller, depicting the death of Elektra, the title hero’s girlfriend.

His collection also includes the last four pages from “The Killing Joke,” a seminal 1988 story that helped usher in a new level of maturity for comic books. That Batman tale chronicles a possible origin for the hero’s nemesis, and was written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland. In November the last page of the story became available at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas. Mr. Mandel landed it for just over $31,000.

It would’ve been nice if the reporter had talked to Scott Dunbier, currently an IDW editor and formerly one of the better known art dealers. If you want to hear some great stories about buying and selling comics art, I highly recommend Scott’s blog.

Review: ‘Superpowers’ by David J. Schwartz

superpowers-us1-4585912Superpowers: A Novel
By David J. Schwartz
Crown, June 2008, $14.95

There are two kinds of superhero novels, with very different rules. The more common – but less respected – kind of superhero novel takes characters and situations we already know from an existing comics universe and tells a story using that furniture. Those books can be amazing, like Elliott S. Maggin’s two Superman novels, Last Son of Krypton and Miracle Monday, or they can be mediocre, like…fill in your own example here. But they all hit the ground running, since they work from our knowledge of those universes. Who would read a Spider-Man novel if he’d never heard of [[[Spider-Man]]]?

The other kind of superhero novel tends to come from people outside the comics field, and usually reinvents the wheel in its vision of superheroics. (Like everything else, sometimes doing it elegantly and sometimes producing an oval object that doesn’t even work as a wheel.) Some of the better examples of that type of superhero novel are Michael Bishop’s Count Geiger’s Blues and the recent Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. Those books often have aggressively obvious titles – [[[Superfolks]]], [[[Hero]]], that kind of thing – to immediately signal to the audience that they’re novels about superheroes.

[[[Superpowers]]] is one of the latter kind of novels, down to the title. The British cover (see the continuation) even has line drawings of the characters in costume (by Norm Breyfogle, a name we who read comics will nod knowingly at), much in the style of last year’s [[[Soon I Will Be Invincible]]]. And the set-up is quite typical of an outsider superhero novel: five undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) develop individual superpowers after an evening of drinking homemade beer. (One of the endearing things about Superpowers is that Schwartz doesn’t even try to explain their origin – something unexpected happened, and they now have powers. Period.)

(more…)

‘Wanted’ to Hit $50 Million Opening Weekend

  • News
  • June 29, 2008

According to Variety, Wanted, the feature film released Friday that is based on the Mark Millar and J.G Jones graphic novel of the same name, is going to have a pretty good opening weekend. In spite of some less-than-stellar reviews, including one from our very own Matt Raub, the film seems poised to be a hit and according to the trade, should take in just over $50 Million at the weekend box office — earning it the number two spot behind Disney/Pixar’s Wall-E.

As this is Wizard World Chicago weekend and Top Cow, the publisher of the original Wanted graphic novel, is at the show, I decided to check in on them and bring their VP of Marketing, Mel Caylo, the good news about the film’s perfomance and get his reaction.

COMIC MIX: Hey Mel, I just heard that Wanted may do over $50 million this weekend at the box office. How do you feel about that?

MEL CAYLO: Really? Where did you hear that? If its true, we’re obviously thrilled.

CMix: Variety is projecting it. Wanted will be number two behind Wall-E.

MC: Well, that’s great. And I think we’re on fewer screens, too, so that’s great.

CMix: Those are pretty good numbers. What do you think is responsible for them?

MC: Well, Universal did some really great marketing for the film so that’s a big part of it. They really pushed it hard and got the word out beyond those people that just knew the comic.

And, of course, Angelena Jolie is a big draw. Also, some of it comes from the comic as well, of course. And, the director Timur Bekmambetov did a great job.

CMix: Where you a fan of the director’s other films?

MC: Yeah, I really liked Nightwatch. I thought it was great.

CMix: So, if the film continues to do this well, should we expect a sequel?

MC: It’s too early to say, but I would think if it becomes a huge success than a sequel could happen.

CMix: Can you tell us if any of the creative team has signed up for multiple films?

MC: Not really. I did read that the writers of the film had signed up for a sequel but I can’t comment on that. Or, on who else might have signed up.

CMix: So, some people have signed up but not others?

MC: Again, I can’t really say for sure but obviously, some people wouldn’t be back because they didn’t make it through the film.

CMix: I’m just going to guess and say that probably James McAvoy would be coming back?

MC: I can’t confirm that at all but if there was a sequel, that would make sense.

CMix: Okay, Mel, I won’t put you on the spot any more. Thanks and congratulations.

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks