I like crowds. I like big noisy events. State fairs? Love ÃÂÃÂÃÂâÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂem. Black Friday shopping days? IÃÂÃÂÃÂâÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂm there. Live music with tiny crowded dance floors? Sounds good to me. San Diego Comic Con? Yeah, baby. Ditto The New York Comic Con. But on the other hand, when IÃÂÃÂÃÂâÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂm thinking about Geek Culture and comic conventions,…
The creative process has two cruel extremes. On the one hand, you might be involved with something big and exciting, like a Hollywood movie or a Broadway show, but everyone involved has to work closely with so many other people. Your creative vision, even for the director, may seem like an endless battle of compromises….
For the past several weeks my friend and comrade Paul Levitz has taken to the so-called social media to promote his brand-new comic book, Doctor Fate. Of course, this is his right and more power to him. But I don’t recall Paul doing so much promotion for his work during a writing career that goes…
New York, N.Y. (September 17, 2012) – Titan Merchandise, a leading international licensee of pop culture icons and Captain Action Enterprises, licensors of the popular Captain Action line, have teamed up to produce a series of T-shirts, mugs, I.D. holders and more. These products will be on sale internationally in late 2012. Captain Action is…
A long time ago… 35 years, to be precise… what were you doing? On May 25th, 1977, theaters across the country premiered a little film that you might have heard of… and thereby saved the comic book industry. After the Star Wars comic came out, Marvel sold millions of copies, going back to press for…
This past Tuesday, August 30 to be exact, the New York Times ran an article by Dave Itzkoff about the “new” DC reboot. It was called “Heroes Take Flight, Again.” It’s an interesting article. And its tone is that of a penultimate eulogy. To quote Itzkoff, “Within the DC universe, this new status quo is…
THE PHANTOM: KGB NOIR – THE HAMMERWritten by Mike BullockArt by Fernando PenicheISBN 978-1933076805 This black-and-white trade collects the six issue limited series and also includes artist sketches and liner notes from the author. As Mike Bullock mentions in his notes, this series was changed midstream in length and I think that contributes to the…
Quick Picks for a slow Sunday: Today was former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter’s 58th birthday. Thanos was unavailable for comment. Comic book movie Surrogates flopped in theaters, earning only $15 million over its opening weekend–which is nothing for a big-budget movie like this. They announced the winners of the Ignatz Awards, given for achievement in…
One of my favorite superhero buddy teams is coming back — well, sort of. The recently resurrected Valiant Entertainment has been busy publishing hardcover collected editions of their Shooter-era original titles (in other words, not the Gold Key licensed stuff like Doctor Solar and Turok), each with an original story. Third up is Archer and Armstrong,…
I had forgotten how much superhero comics had changed in the past 15 years when I picked up Valiant’s new Harbinger: The Beginning collection ($24.95), which revives the book’s first issues from 1992. It’s impossible to evaluate the stories without looking at the context of their era. True, [[[Harbinger]]] never reached the excessive silliness of…
Blog@ guest columnist Tim O’Shea notes that March 1 will be the anniversary of the passing of comics legend Archie Goodwin, and writes at length about the editor and his legacy. While editor-in-chief of Marvel from 1976 to 1978, he was credited in the late 1970s with securing the publishing rights for Star Wars. Given…
Steven J. Massarsky, an attorney and businessman best known for co-founding Valiant Comics with Jim Shooter, died October 5, 2007 at 12:26 p.m. in Manhattan from complications related to cancer. In 1989, Massarsky co-founded Voyager Communications Inc. (Valiant Comics), which grew into the third largest comic book publisher in the U.S. The company was sold…
