Tagged: comics

JOHN OSTRANDER: My Way Or the Highway

  • News
  • August 16, 2007

ostrander100-5932297I’m not going to tell you that I’m an expert on marriages and relationships because that would be a gol-durned lie, but one item of contention seems to pop up regularly between men and women who are cohabiting.

Leaving the toilet seat up or down.

It may be an issue in same-sex relationships; I don’t know. I have heard quite a bit of it between male-female cohabitants to the point of it being a cliché’. It was, however, a real debate that I and my late wife, Kim Yale, had. Her argument was that if she went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and the toilet set wasn’t down, she would fall in, get wet, and then I was certain to be woken up to hear about it. My response is that if I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and didn’t look down, I’d pee all over the seat. If I had to do check, why not her? Her response was that the seat could get gross and it was the guy’s responsibility. My response – well, my full response would get me a severe talking to by the women on ComicMix. Let’s just say I’d didn’t think she was any more fragile than I was and we both had the responsibility to make sure the seat was where we needed it to be. We never reached agreement on the topic.

These days I keep the seat and the lid down for two separate but very good reasons. One is that I read that, when you flush, a fine spray of toilet water – and any particulate matter in it – rises from the bowl and settles over the area, including toothbrushes. Plus, our cat Windy has a tendency to play full immersion Baptist in the toilet bowls in the lid is up.

The first reason alone would’ve reason enough for me. If Kim had hit me with that one, I would have had to concede the point. At the time, I didn’t feel like conceding the point because her argument didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t fall-in with my way of thinking. (more…)

shenanigans-9140523

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Shenanigans

shenanigans-9140523

Yes, the title is “Shenanigans,” with quotation marks already in place. No, I don’t know why. It’s not a direct quote, there’s no place named Shenanigans in the story, and it doesn’t seem to be an ironic “air-quote,” either. (There’s more than one bar in this book that could easily have been named Shenanigans, but none of them actually are.) It’s just an annoying, unnecessary tic.

“Shenanigans” is pleasant but unexceptional, a frothy romantic comedy that I suspect started off as a screenplay and probably would have worked better in filmed form. It takes place in St. Louis, where our creepy main character, Holden, gets kicked out of his girlfriend’s apartment at Christmas-time for obsessively playing videogames instead of going out to dinner with her. I’m not sure how old he is; he seems to be a student, but we really don’t get a sense of his normal day-to-day life or a solid idea of what he does for a living. The one thing we see him doing seems like a college work-study program: teaching kids to play hockey. Although…he does seem to sponge off the women in his life, which may be a clue as to his lifestyle.

Holden meets a young woman named Casey, and moves in with her that night. (Help me out here: is that as weird and unrealistic as I think it is, or are twenty-somethings really that friendly these days?) They also sleep in the same bed the night they meet, but don’t have sex, which is just a bizarre combination, especially since the story takes pains to point out that they didn’t have sex. Between the scenes that we see, they drift into something like a normal boyfriend-girlfriend relationship (except for the fact that he’s sponging off her as he did with his last girlfriend), and presumably they start having sex at some point…though the story doesn’t feel the need to explain that point.

Then the story finally starts: Casey has been working as a waitress, but decides to start tutoring college students in math instead. Her qualifications: she’s really really good at mental arithmetic, and she’s totally hot. (No, seriously. There’s no sign that she has a math degree, or anything of that nature. So she seems to be coaching college students in, at best, high-school algebra. My opinion of the fine colleges of St. Louis is still diving as I type this.) Since she’s totally hot, all of her clients are horndog young men who think they’re going to score with her, so her tutoring sessions consist mostly of her edging away from them. She doesn’t seem to realize this, which I suppose makes her some sort of idiot savant…or maybe not a savant. Speaking of not realizing things, her advertisements are clearly based on those for prostitutes, which Holden instantly realized (well, he would, wouldn’t he?), but Casey just doesn’t see.

(more…)

DENNIS O’NEIL: Spoiler Alert!

  • News
  • August 14, 2007

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Danger Will Robinson! Alarums and excursions! Better watch out, better not cry, better not pout…Beware! Mayday! Here there be dragons! Detour, there’s a muddy road ahead…

Okay, enough of that.

What I’m warning you about is the ending of The Bourne Ultimatum, now playing at a multiplex near you, recipient of good reviews, maker of serious bucks and, in the opinion of residents of this house, a pretty good popcorn flick.

(more…)

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Notes for a War Story

In its original Italian form, Notes for a War Story won the 2005 Goscinny Prize for Best Script and was the Best Book of the Year for 2006 at the Angouleme comics festival, so I have to assume that it’s one of the very best European works of recent years. Which is unfortunate, since I found it only moderately successful.

It’s set in an unnamed European country, during an unnamed conflict among unspecified groups, in the vaguely recent past. All the non-specificity is meant to give it an aura of timelessness, or of dislocation, or something like that, but it left this reader feeling as if I were wandering about in a fog. Compared to the specificity and closely-observed detail of a book like Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde, Notes from a [[[War Story]]] is thin and ineffectual, unwilling to commit to being for anything, or against anything other than the very abstract idea of war.

The plot follows three young men – Giuliano, Christian, and Little Killer – who are scavenging in a region of small villages being bombed by enemy forces. They’re not in the armed forces, and they never encounter anything like regular armed forces, not even as much as seeing a bomber in the sky. They’re supposedly in the middle of a war, but they are actually seen in a mostly-depopulated landscape, drifting into gangsterhood.

(more…)

0804-23-assemblesquad-8855189

MIKE GOLD: Get a life? Why?

  • News
  • August 13, 2007

mikegold100-4635945It would be silly if I didn’t enjoy being a comics and popular culture mini-mogel. It’s fun to have movie stars call you up; that just happened. Getting into movie screenings is swell. People give you cool stuff. I’ve been friends with Will Eisner and Dick Sprang, and Dick Giordano was at my birthday party last week. I get to work with my closest friends, with people I respect, and with folks with whom I am in awe. Coupled with my fantastic, loving family, I live out Randy Newman’s great song from 1983: My Life is Good.

Of course, Newman’s a bit sarcastic, but then again, so am I. But I prefer to think of me as edgy. Randy, on the other hand, writes songs for Disney movies. We all have our outlets.

And comics is one of mine. A big one. It’s been the thread that’s run through my entire life. I learned how to read by trying to decipher Pogo and Li’l Abner on the comics page of the Chicago Daily News. I left broadcasting in 1976 to work for DC Comics, and I’ve never looked back. It’s how I met my wife and daughter (figure that one out).

0804-23-assemblesquad-8855189So now that I’ve turned 57, I once again find myself in the middle of another “summer” comics convention season. In the past couple months we ComicMix folk have been to, oh, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Long Island, San Diego, Chicago, four or five different shows in New York City, and probably a couple I’m temporarily forgetting. I’ve still got Tarrytown NY, Baltimore MD, and Columbus Ohio to go this year, along with at least one other show in Manhattan. And one thought has been clattering against my brainpan for the last several weeks:

I’m really getting too old for all this.

Right now, I want to go see The Simpsons Movie and Sicko and the Bourne Whatever, and I want to sit down with a stack of comic books as tall as Glenn Hauman and just chill out and read ‘em.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I’m whining. There’s a difference.

I love ComicMix, I love seeing old friends at these here conventions, and I truly enjoy meeting comics fans. But, right now, I don’t think we’ve got a show scheduled for October (I refuse to check) and, damn it, I’m going to go trick-or-treating and I’m going to go to a couple hockey games with my daughter.

You see, my life IS good.

Mike Gold is editor-in-chief of ComicMix.

WW-CHICAGO: Marvel Still Civil

  • News
  • August 12, 2007

Wild Weather on the East Coast Friday stranded most of the Mondo Marvel panelists in New York (hmmm… wonder how ComicMix‘s E.I.C. made it out that evening), leaving Joe Quesada and C. B. Cebuliski to fend for themselves while sharing with the crowd images and news from upcoming Marvel projects.

One other panelist, Rob Liefeld, who was there to talk about his new Killraven series. Apparently thought up at a bar in San Diego last year, Liefeld and Rob Kirkman will be bringing us an all-new take on the charactertarting fresh and looking to integrate Killraven into the Marvel Universe of the future – a world where our heroes are gone but their artifacts remain, one piece of art had Killraven holding Captain America’s shield. Look for the book in mid-2008. Reminding us that the creators of comics were and are comics fans themselves, Liefeld took some time to talk about his love for the character (and his DC counter-part Kamandi) during his childhood, you could hear the 11 year old Rob coming through loud and clear.

Luke Cage is back in his tiara and yellow shirt now that writer/artist (and Cartoon Network legend) Genny Tartakovsky has gotten a hold of him. The new artist on Punisher War Journal is Corey Walker. Doing his first work for Marvel, Tan Eng Huat (Doom Patrol) will be the artist on the mini-series Silver Surfer: In Thy Name, to be written by Simon Spurrier (2000 A.D.). I wonder if that news blows the ending of the current Silver Surfer mini.

Up next for Paul Jenkins will be a limited series drawn by Paul Guluay called Penance: Relentless about “the most hated man in America.”

Quesada and Cebuliski also said there are some big shake ups (an end?) coming to the Ultimates Universe by year’s end, and we’ll be seeing the "real" Nick Fury back in action next year.

laika-9571086

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Laika

laika-9571086

This graphic novel is pretty good just on its own terms, but it’s an excellent object lesson. If you know of anyone who thinks that comics are essentially limited in scope to brightly-clad folks punching each other with great vigor, this will help to expand their horizons. It’s the story of Laika, a Russian dog who was the first living creature from Earth deliberately sent outside the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s an impressively-researched story braiding a fictional back-story for Laika (and several other characters I believe are also fictionalized) with the story of the “Chief Designer” of the early Russian space program, Sergei Korolev. And all that is told in comics, and, I suspect, primarily aimed at the grade 6-12 audience.

I’m not familiar with Adadzis’s work, but the note on him in [[[Laika]]] calls him an editorial consultant who “creates words and pictures for a living and loves both equally.” According to his website, muck of his work has been for children, especially recently, though he did something called Millennium Fever (with Duncan Fegredo) for Vertigo in 1995 and [[[Children of the Voyager]]] (with Paul Johnson) for Marvel in 1993.

Laika is a dense book; we start off with a flashback to Korolev’s release from the gulag in 1939, stop briefly at the first successful Sputnik launch in 1957, and then dive back into a long account of the life of a dog. (Who, as we all can guess, eventually becomes Laika.) This graphic novel is about two hundred pages long, and each page has about ten small panels, in shifting grids with occasional snippets of white space. And there’s quite a lot of dialogue along the way, in what I’m tempted to call the Russian manner. It’s not a quick read by any means, and the panels can get quite cramped at times. It’s never difficult to read, but there is an awful lot here. Those who judge books by how much time they take to read should enjoy Laika.

(more…)

sexist-disney-rejection01-2084722

MICHAEL DAVIS: You’ll never work in this town again

  • News
  • August 10, 2007
sexist-disney-rejection01-2084722
 
What you see posted above instead of my picture is an actual Walt Disney Company rejection letter from 1938. When I found this on line I freaked the heck out. I mean look at it! It says, in affect, “Look here, bitch you can’t work here because you’re a girl!”

Before you start marching on Disney, remember this was a vastly different time in America. It’s fair to say that me writing that I dated white women would have been just cause for me to fear for my life in 1938 in some parts of America. We have sure come a long way!

Or… (Place ominous music here) have we?

There are still people in this country who think that women and other minorities are not equal.

It’s the year 2007 and the ERA has not been pasted. The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, is still not part of the U.S. Constitution.

What is up with that?

It’s the year 2007 and there are only 35 states that say that women are equal. So how far have we come?  I know from experience that there still exists racism in this country. Statistics prove that sexism still exists. The “glass ceiling” is a frequent topic for documentaries and ‘special reports’ on news programs.

This Disney letter got me wondering if sexism and racism are real factors in the entertainment world. I have been on hundreds of TV pitches and never felt it was a factor. I, like a lot of black people have a sort of radar sense when it comes to discrimination.

No, I am not the sort of person (but I do know black people like this) who blame everything on being black. Have you heard any of these? They did not hire me because I’m Black. They won’t rent to me because I’m Black. They think I’m darker than them because I’m Black.

Now replace “black” with “woman” and tell me have you heard these? They did not hire me because I’m a woman. They won’t promote me because I’m a woman. They think I’m female because I’m a woman.

I used to think that some deals of mine were killed because I was black. I realized that it was not because I was black, it was because some people in positions of power did not like me.

 

sexist-disney-rejection02-2007809

(more…)

JOHN OSTRANDER: America, George Bush and … Marvel Comics?

  • News
  • August 9, 2007

eagleflag-1890653I received an urgent, earnest e-mail asking me to sign a petition expressing my indignation at how the Democrats went belly-up once more to the White House bullying tactics and passed the Security Bill which limits our freedoms just so they won’t appear weak on security in the next election.

Sorry, gang, but the indignation ain’t in me this round.

It’s not that I don’t feel that the legislation isn’t an assault on our liberties or that is unnecessary and useless; I do. I just don’t think the Dems can be shamed into changing their vote at this point. Despite their pre-election rhetoric before the elections in ’06, they haven’t voted to end the war in Iraq or cut off the funding for it because they are more concerned about maintaining and widening their control in Congress and gaining the White House as well. That, more than anything else, is their real objective.

Power.

Same as anyone else in politics.

It’s turned into the political Catch-22. To do anything, you must gain power. To continue to have the ability to do anything, you must maintain power. Actually do anything and you risk losing power. So instead we get smoke, mirrors, theatrics, and power plays. That’s on both sides of the aisle.

The Bush Administration has, at least, understood the concept of using the power accrued; they’ve just made a terrible hash of it. Can we all agree that the WMDS were always an excuse, that 9/11 had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, and that the Bushies knew it, know it, and didn’t and don’t care? The real basic premise of the Bush Neo-Cons was to get rid of a murderous dictator that even the other Arabs didn’t much care for and, in his place, create a functioning democracy that, by its success and example, would begin to change the face of the Mideast. 9/11 simply offered a justification. All in all, it was a seemingly laudable goal but it was attempted by a crew that didn’t know the language, didn’t know the culture or the people, and couldn’t be bothered to learn. There was no contingency planning. It was a perfect storm of arrogance and ignorance.

I’ve seen that kind of mixture before, on a much lesser scale, when Ron Perelman bought Marvel in 1989. With him came business types who were going to apply sound business theory to Marvel. Comic books were just another set of widgets and they would apply their Universal Business theories to make Marvel a combination of Disney and McDonald’s. (I’m not exaggerating or making this up; that’s what I was told by a Marvel insider at the time.) They took a company that had maybe 70% or more of a strong market and then bankrupted the company while nearly destroying the market. Again, a combination of arrogance and ignorance. Perelman and his people knew everything; they didn’t ask for the advice of people in the industry. They already knew better. Except they didn’t. They made choices that made everyone in the industry who did know something about how it was run start scratching their heads.

(more…)

engine-1755374

Ellis’s Engine seizes up

  • News
  • August 7, 2007

engine-1755374Quoting directly from Warren’s Bad Signal blast: "THE ENGINE will close  a little before midnight UK time on August 31 2007. The first year  was about getting creators together and facilitating conversations that  didn’t have anywhere else to go.  The second year was about just  providing people with an interesting place to talk.  Two years is  enough.  Time to move on. So you’ve got three weeks to mine out the  place for the data you need, exchange contact details and all  that."

"I’ve informed Andrew, the host, of my intent — it’s up to him  whether or not the Engine remains as a static archive, though I’ve told him  it’s not necessary.  The search function has always been a bit weird,  so I’ll be opening a thread for you to help each other find what you  need. http://engine.ning.com will remain open — in fact, I’ll add a  forum function to it for those of you who want to stay together and stay  talking."

Great, now we need to build a new online community for comics creators, fans, and the like…

Hmmm.

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks