Tagged: comics

Pulps and pulp comics

  • News
  • March 11, 2007

moonstonelogo2-5237012There has been quite a revival of interest in the old pulp heroes over the last year or two. Moonstone Books launched with the pulp-like exploits of Kolchak the Night-Stalker before adding characters such as The Phantom and The Spider, while Anthony Tollin has relaunched The Shadow and Doc Savage in two lines of facsimile reprint editions. In Hollywood, Sam Raimi has signed on to produce a movie about Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze. With so much renewed interest, we here at ComicMix thought we should dig a little deeper.

The energetic Joe Gentile has been running Moonstone Books for a decade now and has grown the line from a one or two comic books a month outfit to a burgeoning publisher of not only comic books but prose works. I chatted with him by e-mail to learn what’s been going on.

In the interests of full disclosure, I have written one story for Moonstone’s anthologies, with work beginning on a second, and ComicMix columnist John Ostrander has contributed a story to the recently released Kolchak prose anthology.

Robert: Joe, for those not in the know, what is Moonstone’s mission?

Joe: Well, we thought there were some niches that weren’t being filled in comics. We thought that if we could fill some of those, perhaps (with promotion and advertising, which we did a lot of at the beginning) we could bring either new people or readers who left the hobby, to come back to the comic shops. Great stories was always our #1 priority, all things else aside.

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Just another MoCCA Monday

  • News
  • March 10, 2007

luluberty-9615143Friends of Lulu has been a visible player in the comics world for about fifteen years now.  Like many organizations, it’s had its share of controversy.  It’s also helped give visibility and voice to a lot of talented writers and artists in an industry where, until very recently, one of the most frequently asked questions seemed to be "where are all the women comics creators?"

In the interest of full disclosure, I was very active in FoL for a number of years, and helped nurture some of its successful ventures dealing with women’s visibility like the Women Doing Comics list on the national website and the Women in Comics discussion series hosted by the New York chapter (see logo at right, created for the FoL/NY t-shirts by my best friend, the late Leah Adezio).  So I feel a bit like a mother hen when noting that the latter is still going strong, currently in association with the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in Manhattan’s SoHo district, which hosts what it calls their "MoCCA Mondays."

This coming Monday, March 12, MoCCA and FoL/NY present a panel called The Big Picture, as artist Marion Vitus moderates a discussion with a group of four diverse professionals — Del Rey Manga’s Trisha Narwani, NYPL Teen Central’s Melissa Jenvey, artist Christine Norrie, and Friends of Lulu cofounder Heidi McDonald — as they look ahead in the comic book world.  The program begins at 6:30 PM and is absolutely free.  Tell them the mother hen sent ya.

The Onion on Captain America’s death

  • News
  • March 9, 2007
Captain America, the comic book character created during World War II as a patriotic opponent of the Nazis, was killed by sniper bullets in a recent comic. What do you think?
 
Monica Chan,
Systems Analyst

"But who will avenge him? If only there were a group of ‘avengers,’ if you will, organized for that purpose."

(Copyright 2007 The Onion)

Tintin heads to the big screen

  • News
  • March 9, 2007

Tintin, one of the most popular comic book creations on the international scene, is headed to the movie theaters coutesy of Dreamworks and producer Steven Spielberg. The movie has a projected budget near $100 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

George Hermi, better known as Herge, created 23 Tintin graphic novels before he died in 1983. Spielberg has been sitting on the rights since shortly before Herge’s death. Tintin already has appeared in five movies — two live action and three animated — and two animated teevee series. The classic Tintin in Tibet graphic novel was adapted into a London musical last year.

 

Convention Intimacy

  • News
  • March 9, 2007

michael-davis100-6133833I just got back from WonderCon in San Francisco, the week before that I was at the New York City Comic Con (NYCC).

These cons were fun and, for the most part, well run. I say for the most part because the NYCC people still have some work to do with regards to how they treat professionals and, more important, the fans. WonderCon ran smooth that’s because no one runs a convention better than Fae Desmond and the staff at Comic Con International. They treat each fan like they were the only fan there. The NYCC people have a good heart and I think any problems they had came from the staff at the Javis Center and not the convention people.

I had a good time at both but there is something missing from these cons and for my money something missing from all the really big cons. That something is intimacy. Now I can hear you asking the question: what does intimacy has to do with a comic book convention?

 

My answer is… everything.

Comics is an intimate medium, or it was once upon a time. Comic book fans will wait on a movie line for hours and consider it part of the experience. Comic book fans think that Star Trek marathons are cool, even if they were born decades after the show first aired. Comic book fans don’t just go to conventions seeking the issue of Spider-Man they need to complete their collection. Comic book fans go to conventions to be with like-minded people. They go there because if they want to they can dress up like a superhero and not be afraid. They can talk about a battle between the Hulk and Superman with the seriousness it deserves. Comic fans go to conventions because they are safe. Safe to be who they are, safe to say what they want.

These are important things.

Think not? Well let’s just say you are a comic book fan and you live in South Central L.A. You think you can stroll the street with your Captain Kirk outfit on without taking some flack?

You are walking down a South Central street a group of young men are walking towards you; they are members of a street gang. They approach and the leader stops and talks to you:

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Fellowship of the comic strip

  • News
  • March 7, 2007

pbf-7194306It’s trippy, surreal, beautifully rendered and found in newspapers such as The Guardian and The New York Press and magazines such as Maxim, but is still one of the webcomics world’s best secrets — until now.  Nicholae Gurewitch, creator of The Perry Bible Fellowship, sat down for an interview with Associated Content to discuss his "deliciously twisted" strip and upcoming book collection (out in September).

John Ostrander: Now… now… now

  • News
  • March 7, 2007

ostrander100-7581640There are some things they don’t tell you how to do. Sometimes it’s things no one can tell you; you just have to experience it for yourself. Sometimes it’s just stuff people don’t like to talk about. Stuff like death and grief.

I’m going to tell you what I know. Obviously, I can’t talk about what it is to die; I haven’t walked that road yet and I hope not to for a while. I can tell you, however, what it’s like to deal with death and with grief — at least, what it was like for me. As they say on the car commercials, your mileage may vary.

There are all kinds of death that you experience in your lifetime. Some are not physical — the death of friendship, the death of a dream or hope, the death of an ideal. These are no less real; the grief we feel for any of them may be no less than experiencing a physical death. However, they are different.

Perhaps the first real sense of my own mortality happened when I was about eight; it was one Saturday in late spring and I was outside on my bike. Our house was actually across the street from our church and I watched a funeral procession come up the street to the church’s front door. As I watched, I was hit with the thought that one day I would be in a casket and a boy on a bike would be watching me pass. With that vision came the realization that the world wouldn’t end with my death and that, consequently, it hadn’t begun with my birth. The axis of my own private earth shifted. I pedaled away but I have never pedaled far away enough.

This all comes to my mind because it is the tenth anniversary of the death of my wife, Kimberly Ann Yale. She died of breast cancer in March of 1997 — too soon, as many have noted. Here’s some of the hard facts I learned from that experience. (more…)

WonderCon videos

  • News
  • March 7, 2007

If a picture paints a thousand words, does digital video paint a million?  One way to answer that is to check out CNET’s video coverage of last weekend’s WonderCon.  Included are:

 

Well worth watching, for those who want to relive the experience and for those who didn’t get the chance.

Dennis O’Neil: The Fanatic Conclave

  • News
  • March 6, 2007

dennyoneil1004-7273695File this under: If the tail wags the dog for long enough, does the tail become the dog? Part I.

But first, a little reminiscence.

I had been in the comic book business less than six months, maybe not much more than one month, when I attended my first comics convention at the invitation of Flo Steinberg, known as “Fabulous Flo” during Marvel’s formative days. The event was held in the gym of the McBurney YMCA on 23rd Street in Manhattan. The guest of honor was Buster Crabbe. I don’t think I’d seen any of his filmed work yet, but somewhere I’d learned that he had done some comics-derived movie serials and that made him a celebrity and I guess I was impressed, not having met many celebrities.

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Friends of friends

  • News
  • March 5, 2007

olympus-digital-camera-13The more years we all spend involved in comics, the less able we are to escape our past, especially in the Web 2.0 age.  And that’s actually A Good Thing.  For instance, check out cartoonist Howard Cruse’s blog post where he effusively and rightly pays tribute to ComicMix’s own Martha Thomases, whose family he and his partner Ed Sedarbaum have known for a good long time.  I’m a sucker for "then and now" photos.  Of course, Howard’s not above posting possibly incriminating photos of himself, as you can see by the lovely Esther-and-Vashti ensembles which he and Ed chose to don for their local Purimspiel.

Speaking of past Friends, Leigh Dragoon reports that there will be a forthcoming press release from Friends of Lulu (an organization with which Martha and I both spent many years) regarding their ill-fated Empowerment Fund.  From what she writes, it seems the organization is intent upon correcting past wrongs, which bodes well for its future.  Considering the long journey women in comics still have to undergo before the industry’s playing field is truly level, the continued vitality of organizations dedicated toward that goal is more important than ever.

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