Tagged: Disney

Women In Comics – Etta Hulme, by Michael H. Price

hulme-red-rabbit-02-7958746During 1992–1993, my newspaper-of-record became a sponsor of a traveling exhibition of art tracing the centuried history of editorial-opinion cartooning in Texas. Curators Maury Forman and Bob Calvert, seeking to preserve the display as a book, enlisted me to edit their program notes into manuscript form. The finished result, Cartooning Texas (Texas A&M University Press; 1993), has outlived the exhibition by a good many years – but of course could use an update by now.

One timely offshoot was that our expo-opening ceremonies involved such working cartoonists as Ben Sargent, of the Austin American-Statesman, and Etta Parks Hulme, of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in panel discussions and sketch-demonstration sessions that served to bring the exhibition into the here-and-now. Or the there-and-then, as it were. Etta and I officed within shouting distance of one another at the Star-Telegram, and I had been pressing the Powers That Did Be for a couple of years about devoting a Telegram-spinoff book to her cartoons.

The leverage of the exhibition proved sufficient, if only just, to encourage a Hulme book from the Star-Telegram. More of a pamphlet, actually, but it rounded up a fairly generous selection of ’toons, with a page for each piece. I had suggested that we call the thing Ettatorials, but the newspaper’s marketing office preferred UnforgETTAbly Etta. (more…)

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Happy Birthday: Barbara Slate

slate-8997718Born in 1947, Barbara Slate started out in greeting cards before moving to comics. In 1974, she met with a greeting card buyer from Bloomingdales and showed him 24 feminist greeting cards she had designed. Thus, the "Ms. Liz" line was born.

Ms. Liz then became a comic strip in Cosmopolitan, and then an animated feature on The Today Show. Next, Slate spoke to Jenette Kahn of DC Comics, who hired her to create Angel Love. From there, Slate moved to Marvel to create Yuppies from Hell and Sweet XVI (which won a Forbie Award in 1991), and then began working on Barbie and Barbie Fashion (which won the Parent’s Choice Award in 1992 and 1993).

Slate has also written for Disney Comics (Pocahontas and Beauty and the Beast) and Archie Comics, among others. Currently Slate writes for Archie Comics, teaches graphic novel and sequential art workshops, and has a syndicated column called “You Can Do A Graphic Novel.”

Marvel Super Hero Squad Game Announced

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Gamers, get your insulin shots ready. THQ has signed a deal to make videogames based on the too-cute Marvel Super Hero Squad toy line. You know the ones we’re talking about: The two-inch, superdeformed action figures where even the grimiest anti-hero and baddest  bad guy look incredibly happy. Even the Punisher is smiling.

Like the toys themselves, the game is aimed at a younger audience, but should prove popular with adult comic book fans. The first game is scheduled to come out in 2009 for multiple systems. Will one of the missions include turning Doctor Doom’s frown upside down? we’ll see.

Also noted in the press release linked above was that Marvel will be launching a multimedia campaign for the Marvel Super Hero Squad toy line in 2009 with a dedicated animated series and comic books to come.

Oh, and you heard it here first: I predict a crossover in 2010 with Disney, where characters from the two properties will fight, but then realize that the real enemy was cavities. Okay, maybe not… but you never know.

 

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NYCC: Rebooting ‘ReBoot’ with Gavin Blair and Dan DiDio

  • News
  • April 24, 2008

471px-reboot_season-iv_poster-1743990There was no shortage of confused, then surprised, faces in the long line for Sunday’s "ReBoot Panel with Gavin Blair and Dan DiDio" at New York Comic Con. Attendees were at first incredulous that the line was so long, then happy to discover so many fellow fans of the late-’90s animated television series.

Even the creators of the series were surprised.

"Oh, my god! Can you believe this?" exclaimed Dan DiDio as he approached his fellow ReBoot creator Gavin Blair.

"I am blown away by the turnout," explained Blair. "I recognize a quarter of these people from coming by the booth. But the rest is like, ‘Oh my god, where did you come from?’ What’s blowing me away about this con and the Toronto con I was at in August is the age range of the people coming up to me."

"I got little kids, their parents and I got their grandparents coming up to me about how much they love the show," continued Blair. "We wrote the bright, colorful, wacky graphics for the kids and we put the grown-up jokes for the adults. Now the kids are grown-up saying ‘Hey, now I get those jokes.’"

Booked in one of the smaller panel rooms, the event filled to capacity with people sitting in the aisles. The panel was organized to promote The Art of ReBoot hardcover book and the initiative to re-launch the series as a theatrical movie. Panelists included supervising animator Gavin Blair, story editor Dan DiDio (now Executive Editor at DC Comics), character modeler (and producer of the hardcover) Jim Su and Paul Gertz of Rainmaker Entertainment.

Blair and DiDio quickly became the focus of the panel as they reminisced about the groundbreaking CGI animated series that imagined what electronic life was like inside a computer. In the series, Bob the Guardian and his friends defended the system from viruses, hackers and troublesome games. Since the show is no longer on the air, the tone was unrestrained and the panelists were frank about their memories of the series.

As DiDio explained, he wasn’t originally one of the creators of the series. He was the series liason for the ABC network.

"The first show I was assigned was ReBoot," said DiDio. "You’re looking at the first computer-animated television series ever. Nobody knows what’s going on. Nobody knows how it’s being done."

Blair then explained that, as they showed DiDio around the Mainframe Entertainment production studios, they had the same staffers sit in different rooms so he would think the operation was bigger than it actually was.

"I completely fell for it all," laughed DiDio.

(more…)

59, by John Ostrander

  • News
  • April 24, 2008

Numbers represent. They don’t really mean.

Any meaning associated with numbers – or words for that matter – are what we assign to them. My social security number identifies me to the government but it’s not who I am. It has importance, yes, and if unscrupulous people get a hold of it, it can have a terrible impact on my life. It is not, however, my life. The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The road map is not itself the road.

I turned 59 last Sunday and I’ve asked myself “What does that mean? Am I different in any essential way than I was on Saturday?” No. “Do birthdays have meanings?” If we give them some – yes. I like to celebrate the birthdays of those close to me more than I like to celebrate my own. I celebrate the fact that they were born, that they entered this world, and I get to be a part of their lives. I don’t dislike my birthday; I don’t have a problem with having one. I am thankful for the thoughts and good wishes expressed and any excuse to have a double chocolate cake is a good one.

The real use to me of my birthday these days is a bit more meditative. The number 59 has meaning in context with numbers 1 to 58. They are mileposts in my journey thus far. Milepost thirty-three – my first published comic book work. I remember that because I was pleased to be a rookie at anything at 33. Milepost thirty-eight – I married Kim Yale. Talk about being a rookie! Milepost forty-seven – Kim died and the world collapsed only to begin again a few mileposts later with Mary Mitchell. Life goes on. Death gives way to new life. (more…)

ComicMix Radio at NYCC: More Stan, a Little Disney and Eli Stone

cradio-4550209We kick off day two of the show direct from The Big Apple with a rundown of today’s big stuff including Stan Lee again, Peter Parker hanging out with Eli Stone and a sneak preview bonus for Lucasfilm fanatics! Plus, can you imagine the Top 10 Plants In Pop Culture?

Grab your con badge and press the button!

 

 

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ComicMix Radio: This Captain Has Action!

Today, Moonstone launches their revival of Captain Action with a special panel featuring Murphy Anderson, series artist Mark Sparacio and Disney animator Ruben Procopio who created a special sculpture for the event.

We have a sneak preview!

 

 
 
And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-6880227 or RSS!
 
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Skipalong Rosenbloom, by Michael H. Price

  • News
  • April 13, 2008

skipalong-rosenbloom-1s-6655858“In the days before the cultural faucets of radio and television had become standard equipment in each home,” wrote the social critic Gunther Anders in 1956, “the [American public] used to throng the motion-picture theaters where they collectively consumed the stereotyped mass products manufactured for them…

“[The] motion-picture industry … continues the tradition of the theater,” added Anders, “… a spectacle designed for simultaneous consumption by a large number of spectators. Such a situation is obsolete.”

Anders’ influential gadfly manifesto, The Phantom World of TV, came fairly late in the initial outcropping of a Cold War between movies and teevee. Earlier during the 1950s, the movie industry had begun arraying such competitive big-screen ripostes to television as widescreen cinematography, three-dimensional projection – and such passive-aggressive lampoons of television as Arch Oboler’s The Twonky and Sam Newfield’s Skipalong Rosenbloom.

Anders’ perception of obsolescence for moviegoing has proved no such thing over the long stretch, of course – despite many movie theaters’ best efforts during the past generation to render the experience overpriced, inconvenient and unsanitary with cheapened operational standards and automated film-handling procedures. And yet film exhibitors as a class continue to raise the question, “Is moviegoing dead?” This, as if the post-WWII threat of mass-market television had never gone away despite a sustained détente between the big auditorium screen and the smaller home-viewing screen.

(more…)

The ‘Paper Comics Deathwatch’ Continues

  • News
  • April 6, 2008

In the recurring "Paper Comics Deathwatch" feature over at Flashback Universe, the blog’s authors chronicle the events they believe to be hastening the demise of comics in printed form. It’s an interesting read occasionally, and I can’t help but laugh at the way "PCDW Points" are assigned to each event.

Recent subject matter for PCDW includes all of the love publishers are showing MySpace around the comics scene, an analysis of Joe Field’s address at the recent Comics Pro retailers conference and the Wizard crew pimping an advertising partner’s scanner as "Comic Book Collectors’ Heaven."

Heck, they’ve found so much fodder for this feature that they’re taking art submissions for a PCDW logo and awarding some prizes for the winner.

(DISCLOSURE: Readers can always get free, online comics published every every day of the week here at ComicMix, so there’s a distinct possibility that we might be showing up in that PCDW feature at some point, too.)

In related news, Vaneta Rogers recently tackled the best ways to attract new readers to comics in her always interesting Q&A feature over at Newsarama. A variety of industry creators weighed in with their thoughts on how to get a foot in the door with readers outside of the hardcore comics scene.

Christos Gage offers up some of his thoughts:

Like, if you rented a film noir movie, then there would be an ad at the beginning of the DVD, just like you have ads for other movies, but it would be for Criminal by Ed Brubaker, or something like that. I’d like to see ads that tie-in not only with comic book movies — like if you enjoy the Iron Man movie, then you’ll like Iron Man comics. But something where it says, "Hey, if you like James Ellroy, you’ll like Criminal."

Chuck Dixon also makes a nice point:

I wish someone other than Archie would make a digest-sized comic for the "impulse" aisle at the supermarket. A Batman/Superman or Spider-Man or Star Wars comic would go nicely in the pocket recently vacated by the cancelled Disney Adventures digest in thousands of market checkout lines. Disney cancelled their book because it was only selling a million copies a month!

 

(semi-via Journalista)

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ComicMix Radio: Keith Giffen Obsesses

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It takes a certain sort of comic creator to oversee 104 weekly comics in a two-year period, not to mention wiping out a bunch of heroes at the other comic company across the street. That guy is Keith Giffen, and he talks to ComicMix about where he’s been and where he’s going, plus:

— Comic creators dominate the Scribe Award nominations

— Finally –  American Flagg

— Stan Lee and Disney team-up

—  Sure, there’s another  exclusive Graham Crackers Comics variant that could be in the mail to you – if you win by e-mailing us at: podcast [at] comicmix.com

While you were waiting to press the button, Keith Giffen just finished three more comics!

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-9221820 or RSS!

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