Tagged: Mike Gold

Piling It On, by Mike Gold

With great power comes… bloggers.

One of the first lessons I learned writing an Internet column – both here and on my soon-to-be-revived political rant Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind – is also the first lesson I learned when I started on radio shortly after Marconi found the electricity outlet: if you say it, some people will buy it. Either way, if it’s big enough people will debate it.

Joey Goebbels had some success with this concept… for a while.

We here at ComicMix strive for responsibility, and in that spirit I’ve had a great many column ideas that I rejected simply because they weren’t true. Oh, sure, I thought about selling them to Michael Davis, but then it dawned on me I can squeeze this column out of my spiked copy. Ergo, without further ado, here’s a bunch of columns I won’t get around to writing.

•     •     •     •     •

Oh, sure, Marvel rebooted Spidey to much loathing, but the reboot sells and if there’s one concept in comics that is engraved in stone it’s this: “Fool ‘em once, make big money. Fool ‘em twice and they’ll double-bag it.” In this spirit, Marvel has announced two exciting new projects. (more…)

ComicMix Columns for the Week Ending May 18, 2008

According to The Google, today marks the anniversary of the birth of Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School of Design, whose influence can still be felt daily by urban workers every time they look up at a skyscraper featuring way too much glass.  Meanwhile, here’s what our designer columnists have created for you this past week:

Sure to keep your eyes from glazing over!

Barack Obama and the Comic Book Time Machine, by Mike Gold

I have always been a major league comic book fan. Always. As a child, whenever my parents dragged me out of town I would make them stop at every possible drug store, newsstand and dime store so I could check out the comics stock. In those days we had no forewarning of what was coming out when, and few outlets carried every title. Some even ignored entire publishing lines.

So when I think back on those trips, I can date them by the comic books I had seen along the way. For example, I encountered Lois Lane #1 at a roadside inn on the road between Gary and Indianapolis Indiana, since replaced by Interstate 65. Ergo, that trip was at the very beginning of 1958. I was seven years old.

In the corner behind the comics rack, I encountered separate drinking fountains: one said, “Whites” and the other said, “Colored.” That confused me, and I asked my father why they needed two. “Because some people are damn idiots,” Dad replied in undisguised disgust.

We were in central Indiana, a place that just a few decades earlier had been the focal point of the Ku Klux Klan. Now, mind, you, if not for the Ku Klux Klan I wouldn’t be alive today. (more…)

ComicMix Columns for the Week Ending May 11, 2008

Greetings from Asbury Park the wilds of New Jersey, where I’m visiting my Mom for Mother’s Day!  Hope all you moms out there are having a good one.  Here are some loving presents we’ve given you, and every other ComicMix reader for that matter, this past week:

Hey, why not take your Mom to see Speed Racer today?  After all, Susan Sarandon plays the protagonist’s mom, doesn’t she?

Name Dropping, by Mike Gold

I’ve been around the northeast quadrant a bit since the New York show a few weeks ago and I’ve seen a lot of people. Good people, old friends, new collaborators, strange and unusual folks. That’s what my life’s about, and I’m proud of that.

I enjoy going to the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention. Compared with, say, the mass of hustling humanity at comics shows in New York, San Diego or on WizardWorld, the Windy City show is like a weekend at the spa. Anthony Tollin was there along with his latest Shadow and Doc Savage trade paperbacks; we talk about them here all the time. I was able to have a solid conversation with frequent ComicMix commentator Russ Maharas, I got to go over the next Simone and Ajax plot with Andrew Pepoy for a bit, FOC (that’s “friend of ComicMix”) George Hagenauer gave Adriane Nash a swell history lesson on 1950s pin-up art, Rob Davis and Ron Fortier told me about a new project that fascinated the hell out of me, and I had the chance to talk with master cartoonist Jim Engel once again.

The next day we had lunch and dinner with FOCs Charlie Meyerson and his wife Pam (Charlie of Chicago Tribune fame; Pam’s a lawyer and bon vivant) and Rick Oliver and his wife Jade (Honest Rick of First Comics, Jade was a swell comics colorist). George, Charlie and Rick have given us a lot of advice and opinion ever since ComicMix was just a gleam in our eye – Rick is a major commenter in these precincts – and the whole bundle of ‘em are brilliant conversationalists.

Since the best thing to do in Chicago is eat until you burst, we were particularly fond of our dinner with the aforementioned Mr. Pepoy, Simone and Ajax colorist Jason Millet, Hilary Barta (Munden’s Bar, The Simpsons, The Thing, Power Pack, New Mutants, Alan Moore’s Tomorrow Stories), and writer / professor Len Strazewski (Prime, Justice Society, The Fly, Starman, Phantom Lady). Sort of like the fabled Algonquin round table, but a lot more snarky. (more…)

Del Close Close Up, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • April 28, 2008

Well, it’s about time.

Author Kim Howard Johnson, former comics newsman (the late, lamented Comics Scene), occasional comic book writer (Superman: True Brit, with John Cleese and John Byrne), and frequent ComicMix commenter, has written the definitive biography of his mentor, collaborator and friend, comedy legend Del Close.

It’s called The Funniest One In The Room: The Lives and Legends of Del Close (Chicago Review Press, $24.95), and I’ll admit right off it’s impossible for me to not absolutely love a book in which I am mentioned in the second paragraph. I could have titled this column “Me and My Ego” but, no, this one’s about Del’s ego.

Comics fans may be familiar with Del’s work in collaboration with John Ostrander on Munden’s Bar during its original First Comics run, and/or their work together on the even-more-over-the-top Wasteland, the one we did at DC Comics. In fact, it was Del who suggested the title.

Students of American cultural history know Del as a Shakespearean actor who also performed on television and in movies and plays by Steve Martin, Jules Feiffer, William Saroyan, Judge Julius Hoffman, and Kaufman and Hart. But he is best known for his work as a director, teacher and mentor to – to name but a very, very few – John and Jim Belushi; Brian Doyle, Joel, and Bill Murray; Howard Hessman; Rob Reiner; Joe Flaherty; Harold Ramis; Betty Thomas; George Wendt; Tim Kazurinsky; John Candy; Chris Farley. Tim Meadows; Andy Richter; Stephen Colbert; Steve Carell; Kim Yale… and literally hundreds more. Oh, yeah… he was also rehearsal director of Saturday Night Live for a couple years and he created the format for SCTV. (more…)

Superman Blue … Archie Orange, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • April 21, 2008

In the comments section of my column of two weeks ago, I told Van Jensen that today’s broad spectrum of color could not be printed on the cheap toilet paper employed in the days of yore. That stuff would soak up ink like a spirit gets sucked into Harold Ramis’s ghost trap. Back in those days just after the invention of papyrus, color artists were limited to a palette of three values each of red, blue and yellow, plus black. Not a lot to work with.

Still, as Van implies, the end result was fine. It didn’t bother us, just as riding a horse to work didn’t bother us. Except… except … it bothered me.

To be specific, blue hair bothered me.

I understand why hair was blue: if it were black, it’d just look like Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne had a big blob of India ink atop their brainpans. You couldn’t make it look like hair, and not everybody could have brown, red, or blonde hair. The blue stuff was supposed to suggest highlights, but with a few dozen colors to choose from, what can you do?  (more…)

ComicMix Columns for the Week Ending April 21, 2008

  • News
  • April 20, 2008

Welcome to all New York Comic Con attendees discovering ComicMix via our coverage and con presence!  Do stop by Conference Room 10 (mid-level by the bathrooms and Kinko’s sign) to say, "hi," pass along news tidbits and so forth!  In the meantime, as Rick Marshall mentioned in Friday’s "The Changing Face of Online Journalism" panel, one of the things that makes any comics site standout is its unique columnists, of which we have many.  Here’s what we’ve written for you this past week:

Oh, and happy Passover!  Rumor has it that Danny Fingeroth will have chocolate macaroons at the "Disguised as Clark Kent" panel at noon today…

DC’s Killing Fields, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • April 14, 2008

chp-9129134How many times can you run a stunt into the ground in one month before you just look like you’re totally bereft of originality? DC Comics’ June, 2008 solicitations, as published in Diamond Distributing’s Previews catalog, offers no less than six phony death and/or resurrection stunts.

Gotham Underground #9 asks the musical question “Will Penguin pay the ultimate price?” Well, who cares? If he’s dead, he’ll get better. Death has no sting in the DC universe.

Batman #678 is the third part of their “Batman R.I.P.” arc. “Is it truly the end for one of the world’s finest heroes?” the solicitation asks.  Forgive me, but how many times have the sundry world’s finest heroes R’ed in P? Hell, I’ll bet if you ask them they would have wanted to stay dead at least a bit longer in order to get some rest in peace. I should add Robin #165 to this list as it ties in to Batman #678 and has Robin holding a dead-looking Batman on the cover. Maybe – probably – the old buzzard isn’t dead. The fact is, it doesn’t matter.

Booster Gold #10: “Someone from his past must live and someone must die!” My wife informs me (happily) that Ted (Blue Beetle the Second) has already been resurrected. The death – if it actually happens – well, again, who cares? If it was somebody important, he/she/it wouldn’t be killed off in Booster Gold. Unless the stunt has grown so lame that DC is willing to bury it in a title such as this.

(more…)

Money, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • April 7, 2008

I started thinking about money.

Well, actually, I probably haven’t stopped thinking about it since the day I realized my daily school lunch would buy me three comic books and one candy bar. But being older yet no more mature, this time around I started thinking about the price of gasoline.

Right after the New York Comic Con, my wife, daughter and I are going to pile into my 2005 Ford Focus hatchback and drive across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana to spend time in Detroit and Chicago. Mostly work, but lucky for me I work with my friends, which is sort of like spending my lunch money on comic books.

Here in Fairfield County Connecticut the price of a gallon of gas is $3.45. It’s about time they dropped that “9/10ths” thing – I’m sure they will when the price of gas goes above $9.99 a gallon. If previous trips (I do this about three or four times a year, mostly for conventions) are any indication, I suspect I’ll be paying about $3.19 a gallon in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The drive, in total, runs about 1800 miles and my Focus gets about 35 miles to the gallon – this is mostly highway driving, so I’ve got the right car for the job. That’s about 52 gallons for the trip, which I figure will run about $170.00 plus tolls. Call it $200.00; if I flew in alone the car rental would cost more, let alone my airfare.

This brings me back to my lunch money. I am so damn old that my school lunch only cost my parents 35 cents, and therefore the comic books I bought with that lunch money only cost a dime (when the price went up to 12 cents, I just stared at the cover as though it said the Communists had just seized control of the drug store). Today, the average cost of the standard format mainstream comic book costs $3.00. That’s a thirty-fold increase. A gallon of gas in the late 10-cent comics era was about 30 cents, so we’ve only suffered a little more than an eleven-fold increase. (more…)

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