Tagged: Martha Thomases

Good For What Ails You

  • News
  • January 27, 2008

There’s something in the air, and unfortunately your author has caught it.  But it’s well worth rising from one’s sickbed to bring you the weekly roundup of ComicMix columnists!  Isn’t it?:

Apologies for not adding in Andrew Wheeler’s "Manga Friday" columns before now, but he’s only started numbering them himself.  And by the way, the best thing about being sick?  Erm, well, nothing, actually…

Ballad of a Thin Man, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • January 26, 2008

 

Last weekend, we finally caught up with I’m Not There, the brilliant Todd Haynes movie about the myths of Bob Dylan. The director intertwines the lives of six men, each symbolizing a stage of Dylan’s artistic development and public persona. They include a wide range: a young black boy, played by Marcus Carl Franklin; the protest singer, played by Christian Bale; the walking, talking enigma played by Cate Blanchett; the egomaniacal prick, played by Heath Ledger; the romantic, Ben Winshaw; and the lonesome recluse, played by Richard Gere. I don’t know if you’d like it if you aren’t a Dylan fan, but, if you are, it’s an amazing narrative.
 
On Monday, Brian Williams reported on the NBC Nightly News that the Monday of the last full week of January is known as “Blue Monday,” because it’s the single day that the most people are depressed, and has the highest suicide rate. 
 
On Tuesday, Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment.
 
I don’t mean to imply that he committed suicide. His body was found by a masseuse, with whom he had an appointment, and people planning suicide don’t usually get a massage first. As I write this, there’s not a lot of information about what caused his death. The autopsy didn’t reveal anything, nor was there a suicide note. Police found prescription drugs in the apartment, but they’d find prescription drugs in my apartment, too. There was no evidence that these drugs had been taken in anything other than the prescribed dose. 
 
He was only 28 years old, and he had a daughter, Matilda, age two. And now he’s gone.
 
We know and grieve over Heath Ledger because he was famous. We knew his face. We sat in the dark of movie theaters, and projected our own emotions into his eyes. He was young and handsome and talented, and it’s a loss for all of us.
 
Those of us who love comics felt a special kinship, because he was playing The Joker in The Dark Knight. The trailers and the early teasers indicate that he gave a brilliant performance, one that understands the complicated character created by Jerry Robinson and further sculpted by dozens of writers and artists over the past 50 years.
 

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What happens at ComicMix…

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  • January 20, 2008

Wow, new ComicMix contributors Shira Gregory and Rick Marshall have really done a yeoman’s (yeo-people’s?) job filling in our news section, haven’t they?  Even I can’t keep up!  In fact, they’ve posted so fast and furiously that many of our regular columnists have fallen off the "More News" window, so it’s a good thing I do a recap every week:

And I hear a rumor that things are getting steamy over in our comics section.  Have I missed any male pulchritude?  Some of this stuff isn’t safe even for those of us not currently at work!

Every Man a King, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • January 19, 2008
 
In the kind of coincidence that seems manufactured for this campaign season, Dr. Martin Luther King is in the news during the same week that we celebrate his birth and life. In a speech last week, Senator Hillary Clinton said (among other things), “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act… It took a president to get it done.” The media pounced on this as an attack on Senator Barack Obama and his alleged lack of experience in politics.
 
They got it wrong.
 
Oh, sure, that may be what she meant to imply. And it’s certainly easier to cover a news story that’s nothing more than a war of words, a clash of personalities, a spat among gladiators in the electoral arena. It’s an easy narrative, one that pundits can discuss without having to do much actual studying or other work. 
 
It is true that Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. It’s true that he, and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party at the time, along with liberal Republicans (yes, there were such people), were the parts of the government that worked towards this end. 
 

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ComicMix does time

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  • January 13, 2008

Thank goodness OJ Simpson and Marion Jones are serving time, making the world safe from rich,  self-indulgent (and presumably murderous, in one case) black former athletes!  Can rich treasonous white oilmen be far behind?  Well, yeah, actually.  Welcome to America, 2008!  Fortunately, our ComicMix columnists have just the thing to take your mind off these weighty matters, and here’s the roundup of what we’ve done this past week:

At least they can’t take away our dreams yet, so I can still fantasize about Karl Rove being frog-marched into a precinct house, can’t I?

The Rules of Travel, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • January 12, 2008

You can tell it’s January by the seed catalogs in the mailbox. No matter how dark and gloomy the day might be, Burpee and other seed spreaders assure you that someday, soon, the sun will shine and plants will grow.

I’m thinking about a vacation.

“But, Martha,” you say. “You’re a glamorous, successful woman! You have an exciting career that takes you all over the country, where you get to hang out with interesting creative people, all expenses paid. Your job is comics. Why should you need a vacation?”

It’s true that I’m extremely lucky. I get to work in my chosen field and get paid for my work. I get to live in New York City, the veritable Center of the Universe™. Every time I get up in the morning, I have the opportunity to see masterpieces of the visual, audio and kinetic arts. Some of the finest merchants on the planet have their flagship stores within a few miles of my apartment, easily accessible by inexpensive mass transit. Restaurants compete to see who can offer the most exotic, the most exquisite, the most yummy of foods. Why would I need a vacation?

All of this is true. I spent most of my adolescence scheming of ways to visit New York. As soon as I moved here, I met people in the comics business, and exploited them to the best of my ability so that I could learn how to get into the business (thanks, Denny!). I’m livin’ the dream, baby. (more…)

Caucus for ComicMix Columnists

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  • January 6, 2008

Well, about 19% of eligible voters in the first atypically-populated state with way too much power to decide the country’s fate have spoken, Presidential campaign-wise, and rendered moot at least three candidates on the Democratic side, who are no longer Biden their time as they Dodd-er back to Washington with Gravel-y voices.  Thank goodness Kucinich didn’t drop out yet, his name is awfully hard to pun.  Meanwhile, a couple of our weekly ComicMix columnists have become a bit political of late; with the campaign season being so long there’s almost sure to be more where that came from.  Here’s what we’ve given you this past week:

Say, did you know there was also a Republican caucus in Wyoming?  How come Iowa and New Hampshire get all the press?  (Just ’cause Wyoming Democrats caucus separately, two months from now?) If I were Cheyenne I would sue.

Leader of the Pack, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • January 5, 2008

 As I start this column, the Iowa caucuses have been going on for less than half an hour. The 24-hour news channels, however, have been covering them, intensely, all day. The early returns aren’t in, but, since I don’t expect to finish this until the totals are final, we can keep talking.

 
Every four years, we go through primary season. This year, with neither party having an incumbent who can run for office, nor a vice-president who wishes to run, there is an especially large field. The network anchors assure me that, by next Wednesday, the field will have narrowed considerably as the trailing candidates drop out.
 
This is important stuff. We’re at the end days of what I hope will prove to be the worst presidency ever (as in “we will not ever elect anyone worse”). We have a huge deficit and trade imbalance, a tattered reputation among other countries, and people are dying in a war we didn’t have to start. 
 
Unfortunately, if you watch the American news, you wouldn’t know this. You would think it’s all a horse race, a matter of who wins and who loses. Some say the Democratic choice is between Obama and Clinton, ignoring the fact that John Edwards seems to be getting more support than at least one of those people. On the Republican side, they seem to be willing to include John McCain in the battle along with top vote-getters Huckabee and Romney, but that might not last past Tuesday.

  (more…)

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses

  • News
  • December 30, 2007

While it’s been a rather quiet week news-wise, our weekly ComicMix columns have seen lots of activity.  We were particularly honored to host an online wake of sorts last Thursday, reuniting members of the old CompuServe Comics and Animation Forum (myself included) in the comments section of John Ostrander’s touching remembrance of Paul "Zeus" Grant.  Here’s what else we’ve written for you this past week:

We wish everyone all you wish for yourselves in 2008 and beyond.

What are you doing New Years Eve? by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • December 29, 2007

 

When I was a girl, I’d spend New Years Eve watching my parents get dressed up to go out. My sister and I would be in our pajamas, and my mom would put on her make-up with extra care. Lipstick and perfume. We’d wave as they went away, and then try to get the baby-sitter to let us have extra popcorn, or stay up until midnight. In the morning, we’d go downstairs to breakfast and find noise-makers and gilded hats made out of cardboard, souvenirs of the party. It seemed so glamorous. At my parents’ suggestion, my sister and I would make New Year resolutions. I’m not sure if this was to better ourselves, or to keep us quiet on a hung-over morning, but it was fun.
 
When I was a teenager, I was miserable on New Years Eve. I would be home from school, hundreds of miles away from my friends, usually alone. My parents would still go out, but I wasn’t so interested in watching them get dressed. I’d stay up, watching people on television having fun. In the morning, I’d resolve to kill myself before I’d ever be so miserable again. 
 
As an adult, I’ve gone to some fabulous New Years Eve parties. One year, John and I went to five parties. After all, we live in New York City, the center of the known universe, and we know Very Important People. You, a mere reader, cannot possible imagine the things I’ve seen at these veritable happenings. (Okay, that’s not in any way true. You can imagine what I’ve seen. I’ve seen adults – some of whom are dressed in very expensive but unflattering clothes — having a few drinks, eating and talking, usually about real estate prices.) For a few years, I’d make resolutions, if only to please my therapist. Lipstick and perfume? Not so much.
 

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