Tagged: John Ostrander

Unshaven Comics Matt Wright, Marc Alan Fishman, Kyle Gnepper

C2E2 Floor Report: Unshaven Comics

  • News
  • March 25, 2011

unshavenc2e21-800x600-6789940Hello all! I know it’s been a good long while since we chatted. Allow me back into your hearts, and I shall tell you a tale. Unshaven Comics, for those not-in-the-know, is the small independent publishing company I am co-owner of. Unshaven Comics is myself, and my two best friends, Matt Wright and Kyle Gnepper. We formed back in 2007 when we were commissioned to create our first published work… “The March: Crossing Bridges in America”. We released the book in 2008 at the Wizard World Chicago, and sold our butts off. One of our customers? Mike Gold. Yup, that Mike Gold. And soon thereafter… well, you see my name on this site from time to time, so you get the picture.

Let’s jump ahead a couple years, shall we? While we liked doing our debut book… we craved the world of fiction. Thus, we launched “Disposable Razors”… a 3 part anthology series that allowed we Unshaven Lads the opportunity to explore the genres we love. At C2E2 (That’s the Chicago Comics Entertainment Expo) last year, we debuted issue 1. Matt and I got married. No to each other. And then we got houses. Not next to each other, but close. And Kyle moved into his own pad not far away either. Life got in the way, but not enough to stop us from creating. This year, we were proud to start our 2011 convention circuit with issue 2. And here’s where our real story begins.

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Roger Langridge Gonzo Davros art for Comix4Sight auction at Chicago Comicon

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  • August 3, 2009

gonzodalekdavros-1425287Yes, it’s Doctor Who meets The Muppet Show!

At the 2009 Chicago Comicon, Comix4Sight has joined forced with Wizard Entertainment to hold a charity auction the evening of Saturday, August 8th.  The goal is to raise sufficient funds to help cover the costs of John Ostrander’s
treatments in his battle against glaucoma, and it is John’s expressed wish that should we raise funds
above his needs, that excess money is to be donated to The Hero Initiative to help them continue their great works aiding comic creators in their times of need.

Artwork is coming in for the auction, and we’ll be showing you stuff prior to the auction. We already showed you this Batman/Hawkman piece by Andy and Joe Kubert, now we have Gonzo becoming half Dalek, brought to you by Roger Langridge, writer/artist of The Muppet Show comics from BOOM! Studios. Roger did a bunch of other pieces for the auction as well, and we can’t thank him enough.

ostrander-auction-kubert-batman-hawkman-400px-5899120

Kubert Batman and Hawkman art for Comix4Sight auction at Chicago Comicon

  • News
  • July 28, 2009

ostrander-auction-kubert-batman-hawkman-400px-5899120Now that San Diego is over, we can look ahead ten days or so to the next convention.

At the 2009 Chicago Comicon, Comix4Sight has joined forced with Wizard Entertainment to hold a charity auction the evening of Saturday, August 8th.  The goal is to raise sufficient funds to help cover the costs of John Ostrander’s
treatments in his battle against glaucoma, and it is John’s expressed wish that should we raise funds
above his needs, that excess money is to be donated to The Hero Initiative to help them continue their great works aiding comic creators in their times of need.

Artwork has begun to come in for the auction, and we’ll be showing you stuff prior to the auction. We start off with this piece by Andy and Joe Kubert.

The Parting Glass, by John Ostrander

  • News
  • October 30, 2008

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite films is a fine Irish delight called Waking Ned Devine. The closing theme is a lovely version of the Irish tune Parting Glass, an appropriate song to come to mind for many different reasons on this, my final column at ComicMix. The refrain of it reads like this:

So fill to me the parting glass / Good night and joy be with you all.

An appropriate lyric in particular since, last week I was at the funeral of my Aunt Helen who died peacefully at the age of 101. If you’ve read the column regularly, then you might recall the column I wrote when Helen reached her 101st birthday earlier this year. She died peacefully in her own apartment in Chicago, sitting on the sofa, the morning paper beside her. The TV set was still on and she had, by all reports, a peaceful expression on her face.

My family was sorry to see Helen go, of course, but I wouldn’t say her wake was a solemn affair – nor would she have wished it to be. The youngest of the great grand nieces and nephews, ages two or so, played in front of the open casket, turning somersaults and squealing. Helen would have adored that – especially the incongruity of it. As my nephew, Fred Ludwig (who has a fine writer’s voice himself) wrote for part of her obituary, Helen “had a laugh that could fill a room.” I think I heard it there that night.

As I mentioned in that other column, at her 90th or 95th birthday, Helen received many a bottle of bourbon, almost all Seagrams 7. Enough whiskey to stock a liquor store. She laughed as she received each gift and said, “Oh, you know my brand.” She continued to have one highball a day, towards dinnertime, in the tradition of her father, who also lived to be 100. Her stash was found in the apartment – there was plenty left – and brought to the wake in a discreet side room where family and friends could repair to lift a parting glass to Helen without disturbing other wakes also being held at the funeral home. Helen would also have appreciated that – and the toasts.

She left bequests and had her funeral all organized – who was going to do what, what songs were to be sung, what readings at the church – the same church she had attended all her life – and who was to do them. My brother and I were both to do the eulogy. I began my part by “blaming” the Chicago Cubs for her death. Helen was such a Cubs’ fan. For the recessional we all sang “Take Me Out To the Ball Game.” (more…)

Writing Tips, by John Ostrander

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  • October 23, 2008

I was at the FallCon in St. Paul, Minnesota, a few weekends back. Nice little to medium sized Con, the sort I really enjoy these days. You get a chance to talk to the fans and see a few other friends and old pros. I spent some nice time with Pete Tomasi and sat across from Howard Chaykin at a wedding reception/dinner that was held at the Con.        

One of the things I did at the Con was teach a writing class. It was comics based, but I felt a lot of it was pertinent to writing in general so this week I’ll share some of the points I made with all of you as well.

What does a writer do? I start every class off with this question. It’s not really a trick question unless you overthink it. The answer is simple: a writer writes. Every day. We don’t just think about writing or talk about writing although, ghods know, we do that as well because it’s a lot easier than actually doing the work, doing the writing. The action defines what you are. If you write, then you’re a writer. If you don’t write, then you’re something else. A dreamer, a procrastinator, a … something, but not a writer. A writer writes.

Many people say they don’t have time but they really want to be a writer. The solution – write. Find a time. It can be as little as five minutes a day to begin with but it needs to be five minutes every day and it should be at the same time and the same place. Why? Because what you want is to get into a habit of writing. It’s not the length of time but the repetition. It’s like learning to throw free throws in basketball; you have to do it a lot until it becomes second nature. At the start, it will be the same for your writing. It’s not going to be the quality of what you write that matters but the number of reps you do. As I said here a few weeks back, you’re going to start by writing crap. Everyone does. You keep writing and, if you have any talent and learn some skill, you’ll improve but only if you keep writing.

Incarnation. This is what all artists do. We take a thought, a feeling, an insight – something that has no physical form and we incarnate it. We give it a physical form. Artists do it with pencil, ink, paint, and sculpture; composers do it with notes. Writers do it with words. The problem with incarnation is that it is always physically imperfect. What you create will never capture exactly what you had in your mind or heart or soul. I know people who have a real problem with that. They’re almost afraid to incarnate the idea because incarnation is messy and imperfect by its very nature. That’s especially true if you create something that has a life of its own. If you do your job as an artist very well, what you create will take you in places you didn’t think you were going. Let it. Just accept that it’s messy. Life is messy.
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The Man of the day After Tomorrow, by John Ostrander

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  • October 16, 2008

And every fair from fair sometime declines / By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d

Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

smallville-2-figures-8099962

 

The Superman of today is not the Superman of the Thirties, nor of the Eighties, nor the Superman that will be. At some point the Man of Tomorrow becomes the Man of the Day After Tomorrow. He will evolve and change as he has since his creation. Everything changes, everything evolves. The alternative is death and extinction.

The principal problem (IMO) with the most recent Superman film, Superman Returns, is that director Brian Singer wanted to go back and make the Superman 3 film that he felt should have been made. However, that interpretation of Superman belonged to the era in which the original Christopher Reeve Superman was created. Say what you want about Smallville, it at least re-interpreted Superman as if he had come to Earth recently and was a young man today. Sure, at the start it was a little Superman 90210, but so what? It translated the mythos into something recognizable for our era. In fact, in this its supposedly last season, after losing two of the lead supporting cast members, I think the show has gotten better. It borrows heavily from the comic book mythos that spawned it but has consistently thrown a new spin on that mythos. Superman Returns didn’t.

It’s not just Superman; comics as a medium needs to re-invent itself, to adapt to changing times. I love, honor, and respect the comic book retailers but they are in hard times and its going to get harder. Comics are a niche market and the retailers are part of that niche.  There’s x amount of fans buying the books and they have y amount of cash to spend on them. DC and Marvel play the same games from the Eighties with continuity heavy crossovers and attempts to crowd one another off the shelves. None of this grows the market.

One of the things I like about ComicMix and other sites like it is that we are where the eyeballs are, where the future of comics is going to lie – here on the Internet. This is where you can grow the market. It’s cheaper to produce stories on the Internet – no cost for printing or shipping, no distribution or retailer percentages – and you can still package the material for trade paperbacks which is where the real money is in comics anyway. Most of all, it has the potential to reach people who don’t go to comic book stores.

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Newman’s Own, by John Ostrander

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  • October 9, 2008

I liked Paul Newman. I should’ve hated him; bastard was too damn good looking and should’ve given me an inferiority complex. The fact is I didn’t always like how I looked but what I learned was that he didn’t always like the way he looked, either. Newman felt his looks got in the way of his being an actor, affected the roles he was offered, the roles he wanted to play. He was a character actor trapped in a leading man’s body. That allowed me to identify with him as a person as well as an actor.

Paul Newman died about two weeks back. I expect you heard. He had a long and varied career as an actor and not every film was great. I won’t pretend I’ve seen them all but I do have my favorites among them. While I liked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting and admired his collaboration with Robert Redford, those films aren’t on my list of faves. Nor is The Hustler or The Color of Money, in both of which he played Fast Eddie Felson. It intrigued me – the idea of portraying the same character 25 years apart but they don’t appeal to me enough personally to make my own list of personal favorites.

As I said in last week’s column, our likes and dislikes about anything – film, comics, food, whatever – can say more about ourselves than about those likes and dislikes. So I’m not sure what this list says about me. What follows is not a critical evaluation of the films or their place in Newman’s body of work. They’re just the ones I like best and the reasons why.

Hombre. 1967. Martin Ritt directed this western adapted from an Elmore Leonard novel. In it, Newman plays John Russell, a white man raised by Apaches. For various plot reasons, Russell winds up on a stagecoach with a varied lot that includes Diane Cilento, Martin Balsam, and Frederic March. The stagecoach gets robbed by a gang led by Richard Boone who is after the money that March, as a crooked Indian agent, has accumulated. Russell foils the robbery, recovers the money, and becomes de facto leader of the others as they try to get out of the desert, pursued by Boone and his gang.

Newman has a great quality of stillness in the movie. His character is capable of sudden and effective bursts of violence but I was also taken with the sense of patient waiting that Newman projected at moments. Very still with little or no body movement, yet he had a sense of attention and focus. He made stillness active.

He’s also wonderfully deadpan and has some great moments in the film as a result. At one point, the stagecoach passengers led by Newman’s Russell are at the top of an abandoned mine. Boone’s outlaws have them cut off and Boone, under a white flag, climbs to the shack to dictate terms. Martin Balsam’s character negotiates and, at the end, Russell quietly tells Boone he has a question. “How are you planning to get back down that hill?” Boone turns tail and flees down the stairs and Russell puts two bullets into him.

That was cold and that was slick and I enjoyed it so much I later stole it and put it into one of the GrimJack stories. Worries me some for what that says about me, but there you go. The character of John Russell definitely influenced the character of GrimJack. I’m not going to tell you it’s a great film but it’s a fave of mine.
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Mickey Mouse: Soldier of Satan, by John Ostrander

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  • September 25, 2008

As reported here on ComicMix last Monday by Matt Raub via AP : “A sheik from Saudi Arabia, a former diplomat posted in Washington, has put out a fatwa on Mickey Mouse, calling him the new enemy of Islam. ‘Mickey Mouse is a soldier of Satan, and everything he touches becomes impure,” said Sheik Muhammad al-Munajid.

‘Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases. According to sharia law, the mouse is a repugnant and corrupting animal,’ he said during a show broadcast by Al-Majd television.”

So. There’s a fatwa on Mickey Mouse.

It should be noted that a fatwa, in and of itself, is not necessarily a death sentence. As Matt noted, “a “fatwa” is a ruling on a point of Islamic law that is given by a recognized authority.” In that respect, it’s not that different when the Pope speaks ex cathedra. It certainly isn’t different that when the Popes called for the Crusades to free the Holy Land.

This is not the first time that Disney has butted heads with religious types. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association began a nine-year boycott of Disney, citing they were too friendly to gays. The Southern Baptists were part of that boycott and if there was ever a group in Western culture that I think was capable of issuing fatwas, it would be the Southern Baptists.

It’s all part of a continuing war on pop culture that is usually conducted by the conservative and/or reactionary elements of society. It’s not only religious groups, either. The comic book medium in the 1950s came under the scrutiny of Congress who felt that comics were degenerative and an unwholesome influence on America’s youth. To fend off possible Congressional controls, the comic book publishers of the day instituted the Comics Code – a straitjacket that bound and confined the comic book medium for decades and stunted its artistic growth. (more…)

Economic Fundamentalists, by John Ostrander

  • News
  • September 18, 2008

227-4-1-8346051Over last weekend, the Presidential campaign’s silly season came to a screeching halt. Karl Rove, politics’ answer to P.T. Barnum, manipulated things pretty well, dominating news cycle after news cycle with his Beauty Queen Who Can See Russia From Her Porch (!) but that pesky reality came in and re-focused everything back on the issues again.

I suspect you know that the large brokerage house of Lehman Brothers went into bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch, another famous brokerage, got sold to Bank of America for relative pennies because it didn’t have much other choice. Insurance giant AIG went on the ropes and required a mega-Fed bailout. The Dow dropped almost 500 points on Monday before somewhat recovering on Tuesday before nose-diving again Wednesday morning.

In recent days, mortgage giants Fannie May and Freddie Mac were also bailed out (and acquired by the government). In a move of surprising fiscal sanity, the government has refused to pay the fired CEOs of these two companies their severance packages that would have come to about 24 million dollars. NY Senator Charles Schumer said “It would have been unconscionable to award these inflated salaries, particularly when the leadership of Fannie and Freddie can hardly be given good grades." Too right, Chuck.

Another bank, Washington Mutual (WaMu – Wooo Hooo!), is on the skids. Other banks and big-time brokerages are in trouble. The Fed has signaled that Wall Street should not expect the sort of bailout that they’ve done elsewhere. And experts are saying that a full-blown recession can be expected by the end of this year, start of the next year at the earliest.

Pesky reality.

So we’re back to dealing with issues. And what’s the main issue? What’s the election going to be all about? Not Sarah Palin, although her getting anywhere near the Presidency is pretty scary. Not the Iraq War, although that remains a mistake and a drain on our resources and the lives of our soldiers. It’s not about “values” and whose values are best. It’s not about whether or not we agree on what God is or if there is a God. It’s not about “smalltown” versus “big city.” It’s not about red states versus blue states. It’s not the environment although having air to breathe is pretty important. In terms of the election, there is one primary issue.

It’s the economy, stupid.

It’s as true today as when James Carville hammered it into Bill Clinton and got him into the White House. People are hanging on by their fingertips; they’re losing their jobs, their businesses, their homes. Older people are losing their pensions. I know people who have houses they can no longer afford but that they can’t sell, either, because the housing market is so depressed. I’m not talking about people buying McMansions. I’m talking about regular people with modest homes who were able to handle their mortgages until the economy went south. Now they can’t make the monthly payment, they can’t sell the house – period – and they have damn little hope.

John McCain went on the air to say that the “fundamentals” of the American economy were sound. The Democrats pounced and McCain stumbled back on the air to explain what he meant by fundamentals. He displayed an interesting bit of body language while doing it; his head kept moving side to side suggesting he either has Parkinson’s or he was denying what he was saying.

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Are They Experienced? by John Ostrander

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  • September 11, 2008

I was talking with “goldeneye” Glenn Hauman about a week ago and our conversation, as it often does, turned to politics. Glenn told me both presidential candidate Barack Obama and presidential candidate John McCain were asked which was their favorite games of chance. Obama replied “poker” and McCain replied “craps.” Glenn and I both found these choices telling, especially with McCain’s recent choice of Sarah Palin as his running-mate which certainly qualifies as something of a crapshoot.

Poker involves a lot of different elements: reading the other player, calculating the odds based on the cards played and the cards you hold and, as the song says, knowing when to hold ‘em and knowing when to fold ‘em. You need to think. Craps counts on luck and your gut feeling. You do your ritual, roll the dice, and hope.

That’s not the main reason I’m for Obama over McCain in the Presidential race but it is indicative of why I prefer the senator from Illinois over the senator from Arizona. We’ve had almost eight years of someone who trusted his gut and rolled the dice and the country has come up craps. We’re neck deep in it. It’s time for a poker player – someone with intelligence and skill.

There are/can be/should be a lot of different elements that goes into choosing the person you want in the most powerful position on Earth. There’s been a lot of talk about “experience” and which presidential/veepal candidate has the most or what kind of experience they’ve had. I’ll tell you a secret, though – everyone has experiences. The real question is have you learned anything from them and, if so, what.

The American poet Emily Dickinson lived most of her life within her house and even her room. Yet from that set of circumscribed experience she distilled 1800 poems and described vividly the “landscape of the spirit.” On the other hand, we also all know people who seem to never learn from their experiences and keep repeating them over and over again to their own detriment.

For example, Wile E. Coyote has lots of experience chasing roadrunners. He never seems to learn much from those experiences. He’s not a quitter; got to give him that. He has lots of tenacity. And he just announced Petunia Pig as his running-mate. I like ol’ Wile E. but I’m not going to vote for him for President. I want the guy who avoids the traps, not the one who steps into his own trap time and time again. (more…)

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