Tagged: Mike Gold

Darn you, Westinghouse!

  • News
  • October 21, 2007

On this day in 1925, the first photoelectric cell was publicly demonstrated by the Westinghouse Electric and Mfg. Co. at the Electrical Show at Grand Central Palace in New York.  That palace no longer exists, having been replaced by an office tower, but it seems photoelectrics will always be with us in one way or another.  Heck, you’re probably soaking in them right now.  And with that cheery thought in mind, here’s your weekly one-stop ComicMix columnist shopping:

As you can see in our previous item, Ric is across the ocean from us, probably having the time of his life, and will return next week.  And now to return to my current masters, the television/DVD combo…

Teaching Behind The Eightball, by Mike Gold

  • News
  • October 15, 2007

I’ve lived in Connecticut for the past 22 years, and I’ll admit I’m hardly the most loyal of Nutmeggers. It’s very pretty up here, once you get out of its typically American cities, but some of the people tend to be a bit self-absorbed and snooty. But before this past week, I could not say I was actually embarrassed to live here. Here’s the story.

29 year-old teacher Nathan Fisher used to run an English class at Guilford High. As we all recall, part of an English teacher’s job is to assign various types of reading assignments. He assigned one of his students – a girl, which I think is significant to the story – a comic book, Daniel Clowes’ Eightball #22. Another student freaked, the parents started a crusade, the board of education got involved, the police were called, the state Department of Children and Families was called in, and the comic book was labeled pornographic. In short order, Mr. Fisher was forced to resign.

He was, according to the Hartford Courant, a well-respected teacher who previously had received praise from his superiors. Loren Sterman, a Guilford parent who coincidentially works as a school counselor in New London, told the Courant’s Rick Green "He is someone who cares deeply about children’s literacy and who looks for ways to hook them into reading. That’s what he did for my daughter."

The police found no cause for hysteria. The Department of Children and Families found no cause for action. This is significant; I’ve worked with the Connecticut DCF on Head Start and related issues, and to my experience it would be difficult to find a prissier or more bureaucratic bunch of ass-coverers. They’ll fine you for hiccupping in a swimming pool, and they found nothing. (more…)

We’ve got issues!

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  • October 2, 2007

Okay, technically we’ve got issue with no "s", but today is a pretty big day for ComicMix.

We have a new design. We published the first installment of one of our comic books online. We added the ability to leave anonymous comments. We added an easy way to listen to our podcast archives. Best of all, we moved the site to an entirely rebuilt publishing platform which will let us release new features over the coming weeks at light speed.

The amazing thing to me is that it’s just a start. It’s everything that comes after today that has me so psyched.

(more…)

MIKE GOLD: Enough Is Enough

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  • September 24, 2007

14546__harvey_l-8584543There’s an old saying in the criminal law business, particularly as it applies to those who don’t have a lot of money: if you go to jail for something you didn’t do, pretend it’s really for something you actually did.

I don’t know if O.J. Simpson ever heard this, and – here’s the important part – I don’t care. So, of course, I’m going to write a whole column to explain why.

This sophomoric little sideshow has dominated the media while our nation is sinking further into the deepest of quagmires. And by “sophomoric,” I’m referring to what O.J. purportedly did this time around, by the Vegas dog-and-pony shows with the convenient tape recordings and Imax tapings, for all I know, but mostly by the media’s asinine coverage.

Here in New York, O.J.’s getting out on bail eclipsed the also-breaking-at-the-same-time story about how Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was denied permission to visit the World Trade Center site this week. Yeah, I know, the guy hates us. Fine. But a lot of our “enemies” have toured Ground Zero in the past six years. That’s been real easy, as we’ve been incapable of actually building anything there since 9-11. Iran wasn’t responsible for the bombings, and world leaders are permitted to attend the opening of the United Nations in New York each year. Even our oldest living bugaboo, Fidel Castro, has attended a whole bunch of times. So why are we being so bratty about this guy? He hates America? Everybody hates America. Thank you, Mr. President.

People want O.J. in jail because he got away with murder. I can understand that. Personally, I wouldn’t even hire Blackwater to bodyguard him – the job’s too risky. But let’s face it: O.J. got away with it. If you want to jail someone, try one of the clowns responsible for his prosecution. We know they’re no good in court. The great irony of the murder trial is that Simpson vastly overpaid for his legal team: the prosecutor’s office was so inept Harvey Birdman could have gotten him off. Their top witness was a compromised bigot, and their best evidence was a pair of gloves that did not fit. Gee, I know a lot of lawyers, and not one is dumb enough to let that go through.

(more…)

Going forward into the past

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  • September 10, 2007

Once again I’m here at home base whilst my ComicMix colleagues have more convention fun, this time at Baltimore where, just about at the time you read this, The Big Announcement will be made.  I do hope it’s good news!  Meanwhile, let’s not forget that we "Phase One-ers" are still around cranking out our weekly columns:

And of course, Mellifluous Mike Raub edges ever closer to the hundredth Big ComicMix Broadcast:

Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, folks!

MIKE GOLD: Belabor Day

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  • September 3, 2007

mike-gold-2-100-7210334As our own Martha Thomases pointed out  last Saturday, today is Labor Day. Martha made an interesting comparison between Manhattan and the Bottle City of Kandor without once referencing Rudy Guiliani as Brainiac. Nice self-restraint, Martha!

Like Martha, I, too, come from a city of Big Labor, one that has thus far managed to avoid the menace of Wal-Mart, the worst drug that has invaded American shores. I was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW; the Wobblies) until I became an editor, a.k.a. “management.” So I tend to look at the world from the point of view of the working person, and I’ve got the financial stability to prove it.

So on this, ComicMix’s first Labor Day, I thought I’d make a few comments about the comic book business and its workers.

Creators who work in this medium are, by and large, freelancers. They are, by and large, responsible for their own health care and retirement. This means that most comics people have no health care or retirement. I know people on the Right consider this to be their fault, the result of the fact that they’re not as smart as people on the Right. These are fools who have never had to face the prospect of going without food or lodging. It’s amazing how fast your priorities change when you’ve got nothing on the table and in a few weeks no place to put that table. As a comics editor, I’ve always remembered this: the people upon whom I depend to pay my rent are living tits to the wind.

Not everybody in comics management remembers this. Back in the 1960s a number of important creators at DC Comics tried forming a guild to protect their jobs and provide some security. DC, of course, was (and is) in the heart of Manhattan. These were creators who were important to the company: they were involved in producing some of the company’s more successful features over the course of their tenure. And within about a year, each and every one of them was gone from the company.

In fact, DC’s then-management actually brought in an editor, Dick Giordano, who would bring in his own creative crew from Charlton. Without knowledge of the situation – he was still in Connecticut at the time – Dick found himself replacing many of these creators. When he told me that story (at the same Westport bar where he was hired by DC), it was clear he hated having been cast as something of a patsy. One of the many reasons I respect him.

Another attempt at guild-making came in the late 1970s. Fresh from his successful campaign on behalf of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Neal Adams helped organize a guild that included a wide variety of comics writers and artists, one that, for a while, looked like it might carry some real weight. (more…)

A rest from your labors

  • News
  • September 2, 2007

I’ll be travelling today, hoping everyone else had plans to take to their cars either yesterday or tomorrow, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t leave you with some fine  ComicMix columns from his past week, all well worth reading:

And for your listening pleasure, Mellifluous Mike Raub brings you the Big ComicMix Broadcasts as always:

And, of course, check out Mike’s weekly Stories Behind The Big Broadcast.

Have a swinging September, y’all!

MIKE GOLD: Comic Conned-Out

  • News
  • August 20, 2007

mikegold100-7174689A whole bunch of us ComicMixers have been attending various and sundry comic book conventions over the past half-year, and, having just come back from Chicago Wizard World, I’ve got a few observations.

For the record, we attended Comic Con in New York, Comic Con in Pittsburgh, I-Con in Stony Brook, New York, Heroes in Charlotte, North Carolina, MoCCA in NYC, the Big Apple Con in NYC, Comic-Con in San Diego, and Wizard World in Chicago. We also did the annual Book Fair and the Licensing Show, both in Manhattan. We’ve got at least three more shows coming up: the Baltimore Comic Con, another Big Apple show in Manhattan, and Mid-Ohio Con in the middle of Ohio.

MOST INTERESTING SIGHT: Scalpers hawking one-day passes at the San Diego Comic-Con. Just like at sports events and concerts. Pretty amazing. I wonder if SDCC saw many counterfeits? I wonder if I could trade my pass for two tickets to The Police?

adam-strange-1216399BEST COSTUME: This is a close call, and sadly I don’t know the name of the winner. But he dressed up as Adam Strange in a costume so on-model Murphy Anderson would have swooned. Take a look; he’s the guy with the ray guns.

BEST PRESENCE OF COSTUMED FANS: I-Con, in Long Island. Damn near everybody was in a costume. Some furry, which confuses some people. But if you’re looking for the thrill of being surrounded by hundreds of costumed college students, many of whom are armed, I-Con won’t let you down.

BEST EXPOSITORY MOMENT: When Adriane Nash explained the concept and activities of “furries” to Michael Davis while at dinner in Chicago. ‘Nuff said.

BEST REUNIONS: Len Wein and I are old friends, but for some reason we haven’t been in contact for a while. A sweet, gentle, funny, talented man, Len will be visiting Munden’s Bar sometime soon. Len and I got together at Michael Davis’s SDCC dinner party, which was my second favorite meal of the convention season thus far (and it was a close second). Also, and equally, Mindy Newell, at MoCCA. Mindy used to write comics; Mindy should be writing comics. Or something. A great talent, a wonderful human being. Hiya, Mindy!

BEST MEAL: The post-Wizard World decompress at Chicago’s Gulliver’s Restaurant, the only place I can get genuine Italian beef with barbecue sauce along with the Italian beef goo. ComicMixers Adriane Nash, Mike Raub, Kai Connelly, Andrew Pepoy, and Chris Burnham joined my wife Linda and me, along with artist Reilly Brown and writer, professor and fellow Gulliver’s habituater Len Strazewski. (more…)

Getting wind of what’s been happening

  • News
  • August 12, 2007

Once again we’re away from Second City comic book happenings here in the First City, but at least we can all share Chicago nickname puns as well as the Perseid meteor showers this evening from pretty much wherever we live.  That, and the ComicMix columns from this past week:

As you might expect, Mellifluous Mike Raub is in attendance at WizWorld Chicago, meaning more Big ComicMix Broadcasts than usual:

The interesting thing about many vacations is how much you want to do at the beginning and how little you’ve done at the end.  Mine has gone according to plan in terms of reading (see my column linked above) but not writing.  Ah well, maybe next time…

Fity-seven channels and nothing’s on…

  • News
  • August 5, 2007

olympus-digital-camera-24Yesterday was a very special day for lots of folks.  In the baseball world a couple of home run records were set, in the political world attendees at the progressive blogosphere’s Nerd Prom (yes, they have one too) schmoozed with the Democratic presidential candidates, and we at ComicMix celebrated head honcho Mike Gold’s 57th go-round in life.  All the incriminating photos my camera could muster can be found here.  And here’s our review of what we columnist types have been up to this past week:

I finally got to meet all of Mellifluous Mike Raub‘s many M-named sons, and the one with the "S" name.  He’s been busy as usual with the newest Big ComicMix Broadcasts:

I’m on vacation from my day job this coming week, so who knows, you might even see my byline again on something other than my column and this wrap-up…

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