I was at lunch today with a bunch of comics people, and they were talking about the NY Comicon and complaing how hard it was to find things on the site, like when the panels were and the like. And we’re always happy to help out here.
See you there.
Wired Magazine’s Annalee Newitz believes the plotline of Heroes bears more than a few similarities to that of the recent Grant Morrison-written DC series 7 Soldiers of Victory. Because, you know, nobody’s ever done assemble-the-squad plotlines in the history of television or comic books.
Actually, her point is "the fact that I could fruitfully compare them means that Heroes is finally coming into its own as a good comic book story". Or as, one would assume, a good dramatic story — period.
So do the Guardians of the Universe equip Green Lanterns with bumper stickers that read: My Space Sector, right or wrong?
This question is prompted by something that recently popped up on my screen, a political blog entry forwarded by Martha Thomases, ComicMix’s commnications director and my friend of more than 30 years. The blog was by Matthew Yglesias and it likened the current U.S. foreign policy honchos to the fictional Guardians and their interstellar group of do-bes, the Green Lantern Corps, each of whom is assigned a chunk of the galaxy. Mr. Yglesias describes the gizmos that give the Lanterns their bag of tricks as “the most powerful weapon(s) in the universe,” trinkets that “let bearer(s) generate streams of green energy… (W)hat the ring can do is limited only by the stipulation that it create green stuff and by the user’s combination of will and imagination.” Mr. Yglesias continues: “(A) lot of people seem to think that American military might is like one of these power rings. They seem to think that… we can accomplish absolutely anything in the world through the application of sufficient… force. The only thing limiting us is a lack of willpower.”
I may be typing this on a MacBook but mostly I’m old. Ever so much older than I used to be. A real 20th century kinda gal. So I’m way behind the curve on what those crazy kids are up to when they’re not trampling my theoretical lawn or treating the comics shop like a reading room.
For one, they’re reading lots of comics online — by one estimate there may be as many as 36,000 different web-only comics out there, and that’s not even including syndicated print comic strips reproduced online. There’s just no time to read them all, so we rely on others to announce special events, like today’s online ceremony for the 2007 Webcartoonists’ Choice Awards (congratulations to all the winners!), or the announcement that Ed Dunphy’s and Max Velati’s science humor webcomic Lab Bratz has just hit its 100th weekly episode. At least the latter milestone makes us feel a bit better, as Dunphy used to write for such print titles as Munden’s Bar, Mongrel, Slash and Splatter.
I got those credits from ComicSpace, a sort of MySpace spinoff for comics folks. Feel free to befriend me there; I don’t know how it works anyway. It’s apparently "a community of over 12,500 comic fans and creators… hosting over 3,000 comic galleries… containing over 28,300 comic pages!" so, you know, who has time for that, a full-time job and sleep? Well, MySpace now has its own comic book section, with over 20,000 "friends" so far.
The Internet is rapidly becoming the most expansive force in comics. It’s exciting to watch it grow.
Ghost Rider, based on the Marvel Comics series, dominated the box office this holiday weekend, opening at $44.5 million according to studio estimates. The movie took in over twice as much as its nearest competitor, the Disney movie Bridge to Terabithia, based on the Newberry-award winning book by Katherine Paterson.
This was Hollywood’s biggest opening so far this year, and the best opening weekend ever for comics super-fan Cage, beating his previous $35.1 million debut for National Treasure. This showing bodes well for the movies’ continued association with comic book properties, which are still pleasing audiences despite critics’ misgivings that "the genre" is on the way out.
Someond tell them comics isn’t a genre, it’s a format! Sheesh.
There was a great deal of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth when word leaked out of Hollywood that Joss Whedon had left the Wonder Woman film project and David Goyer would no longer write and direct a Flash film. Similarly, people reacted in horror at the notion of Joel Schumacher having anything to do with a Sandman movie.
Here’s the thing: none of this is shocking. Disappointing, yes, but we long time fans have gotten our hopes raised and dashed countless times through the years.
For those less familiar with Hollywood’s inner workings, the studios are always looking for the next great thing, uncertain of what it might be and where they may find it. So, in addition to buying original stories from screenwriters or ideas from producers and stars then assigning the stories to screenwriters, Hollywood goes shopping. They will receive yet-to-be-published books in galley form, they will scour the news for stories to dramatize, and they will see what their kids are listening to, and so on.
According to Cinematical, writer-director Edgar Wright is currently working on two comic book adaptations on his plate: Ant Man appears to be based on the Marvel title "about a biochemist who develops an instrument that allows him to communicate with and control insects." The other project, Scott Pilgrim‘s Precious Little Life based on the series by Bryan Lee O’Malley, concerns a man named Pilgrim who starts dating a new girl and must battle her seven evil exes, and is described "in the early idea stage." As O’Malley and Hope Larson seem like such a nice normal comics couple, it’s hoped that "seven evil exes" bit is fictional all the way…
UPDATE: Typo corrected in headline.
Nexus, Badger and Punisher writer Mike Baron has organized The Fort Collins (Colorado) Comics Collective with writers Pete Brandvold and artists Nick Runge, Gabe Eltaeb, and Kevin Caron — plus Scott Bieser, who lives in nearby Cheyenne and doesn’t know he’s a member.
"Nick Runge had two paintings of undersea creatures in a downtown gallery," Mike Baron noted. "They popped. The color, the line reminded me of Frazetta. I sought Nick out. He was working in the kitchen of an institutional facility washing dishes. He’d never thought about drawing comics. He went home from our initial meeting and threw together a comic page based on The Last Samurai.
"Nick and I are about to dive into Black Ice, a heroic fantasy I created with Nick in mind. The publisher will be announcing its release shortly," Baron stated.
As part of Boskone 44 this weekend, The New England Science Fiction Association is holding the Mike Ford Memorial Auction & Extravaganza at 8 PM tonight. All proceeds of the auction will be donated to the John M. Ford Memorial Book Endowment, a special fund of the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library.
According to Linda K. Merritt of the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library, "For every $500 dollars deposited in the endowment funds, the Friends purchase a book for the library system annually with the interest earned on the endowment. This really is the gift that keeps on giving. You can specify what genre or library location/branch the books are intended for. Some people just specify ‘where most needed.’ We prepare bookplates and have them inserted in each book before they are shelved. Patrons will see Mike’s name each time the book is opened! I think it is important for people to know that these funds are ‘permanently restricted’ to the annual purchase of books. The money will never be diverted to other use."
Although his only comics credit was for Captain Confederacy, John M. Ford was the man Neil Gaiman credited as "the best writer he knew" at his eulogy.
UPDATE 12:36 AM: Due to the large number of items received, there will be a silent auction for the remainder of donated items this weekend throughout the convention.
Boom! Studios has announced that the writer/director/producer team behind the Warner Brothers film The Astronaut Farmer, set to open on February 23 will be following up by launching a project called Salvador "in the world of comic books." The teaser gave no further information, but they could be talking about this offering found on the Forbidden Planet international site, and an interview with artist Sebastian Jones seems to confirm it.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
