Tagged: San Diego Comic-Con

Glenn Hauman: The Heavyweight Titles of Milestone

  • News
  • December 18, 2013

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In celebration of the Milestones show at Geppi Entertainment Museum, we present this piece, originally published in the San Diego Comic-Con International Souvenir Book 2013.

Twenty years. Daaaaamn.

I spent a lot of time hanging around Milestone when they were first starting up. I was working around the corner from their 23rd St. offices at a digital pre-press house, where DC Comics was getting their painted covers scanned and separated. And I’d worked at DC and knew a lot of the folks there informally, and Milestone in those days was a very informal place. There was no standing on ceremony, if you wanted to show up and pitch in, you could just do that. And I did, bringing over lots of fonts for typesetting on a Mac and helping out with little production things here and there— I couldn’t do much because of my full-time job, but they were a start-up, which meant they worked after 5 PM a LOT. But even as busy as any start-up can get, you could go in and sit in the editor-in-chief’s office and talk— although, to be fair, that was Dwayne McDuffie, a man who had the laid-back confidence that you can only get from being the size of a small mountain. Of course, that didn’t mean you couldn’t push back— I remember asking him after Hardware #1 came out how he really felt about work-for-hire.

It turned out, years later, that Dwayne wasn’t really sure why I was there. We knew each other, and he’d seen me around various comics offices and conventions and the like, but at the time, for some reason he thought I was Walt Simonson’s assistant. The point is, he didn’t care— you wanted in on what they were doing, you were in. Everybody had something to contribute.

The thing about Milestone, and this was a big one, is that it wasn’t a “black” company, even though everybody outside the office thought of it as such. It was a “people” company. Didn’t matter whether you were as dark-skinned as Derek Dingle or as pale as Matt Wayne, a guy even paler than me and that’s going some. Everybody there wanted to make comics— although there was a lot less of the feeling that people wanted to grow up and become Julie Schwartz. Milestone came from knowing that there was a different kind of story to tell, a story that had been neglected in everybody’s straight white male superhero stories, stories that might as well have taken place in 1960’s Riverdale. Milestone showed an entire generation of readers that there were strange new worlds just on the other side of town, and took you there.

More importantly, Milestone broke the monolith of minority character stereotypes in comics, that there was more to the characters than just being black or hispanic or gay or whatever. Icon, Hardware, Rocket, Static, and Wise Son were all black, but they all had different points of view— which just hadn’t happened much in comics before that; heck, I’m having a hard time trying to think of comics before Milestone where two black characters showed up together for any extended amount of time. Is there a minority version of the Bechdel Test? Let’s make one right now and call it the Milestone test: A comic passes if (1) there are at least two minority characters in it, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something besides a white person. And if you have to tell the reader the character is black because it’s in his name– Black Lightning, Black Manta, Black Goliath, Black Panther, Black Racer, Black Vulcan– it’s not really a black character.

But the most amazing thing is that, in many ways, it’s not as big of a deal anymore. You can put Static Shock on TV and people don’t look at it as pandering to connect with the urban audience, he’s a character. And for that alone, the work done by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Robert Washington, Matt Wayne, Ivan Velez, Michael Davis, John Paul Leon, Mark Bright, Trevor Von Eeden, Andrew Pepoy, Janet Jackson, Jimmy Palmiotti, Noelle Giddings, Janice Chiang, Steve Dutro, Mike Gustovich, James Sherman, Joe James, John Rozum, Steve Mitchell, Joe James, Chriscross, Prentis Rollins, Derek Dingle, and so many others… well, it’s a Milestone worth celebrating.

(Originally published in the San Diego Comic-Con International Souvenir Book 2013.)

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The Point Radio: MTV Loves A Good HOOK UP

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Take THE DATING GAME, add in LOVE CONNECTION then connect it with Facebook and you have an idea of MTV’s new relationship show, THE HOOK UP. Comedian & Host Andrew Schulz explains it all plus how he got the sweet gig of being on shows like this, GUY COURT and more. Meanwhile,  New York ComicCon packs them in and Marvel has big plans for some lucky network .

THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

The Point Radio: Get Ready For New York ComicCon

pt101013-5682735Did you catch the premiere of The CW‘s TOMORROW PEOPLE? WE take you backstage with the cast and creators to talk about where the series will be headed over the next few weeks, plus we preview some of the cool secrets coming up at New York ComicCon.

THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Martin Pasko: U-Moved! U-Phoric? U-Betcha!

pasko-art-130808-8661792If you’ve got The Amazing Colossal Comic Book Collection whose unfettered gigantism is dust-collecting you out of house and home, you may need to find a bigger but cheaper house and home … in which case you might need what is known as a Low-Cost Move. Which brings me to this week’s excursion into the realm of Don’t Let This Happen To You.

As I write this, I’m sitting in my lovely new home in California, to which I moved right after attending the San Diego Comic-Con, and am comfortably and serenely keyboarding as usual.

Back from that link? Sorry.

It wasn’t really my intention to begin with a headlong plunge into The Do You Know Long It’ll Take Me To Get That Image Outta My Head? Zone. I only mention it because the only clothes I have right now are what I packed for San Diego, and I launder them daily. That’s because, almost two weeks later, I’m still waiting for everything I have in this world to arrive in a conveyance that is over 10 days late, courtesy of a lovely little company I’ve come to call “U-Hell.” 

But I’m serene, I tell you, serene, because U-Hell now promises me that tomorrow they’ll finally deliver the plywood 8′ x 7′ x 5; contraption we will call “the U-Pod.”

A “U-move” is theoretically simple: U-pack your stuff in this container and They-Haul it to Ur-Destination, where U-Unload it Ur-self, then call to have Them-Pick-Up the empty pod.

But I’m serene, I tell you, serene only with the help of the margaritas I’ve blended every night since shipping the U-Pod from my former home in Pennsyltucky, the Wolf Trap State, so named because after sic months there you’re willing to chew off your own foot to escape. And I’m so drunkenly, sleep-deprivedly serene that I actually believe a promise from U-Hell.

This, despite the fact that everything They’ve-Told me so far about what They’d-Do for me has been either: (a) a “communications error;” (b) something that someone else told me the previous person had no authority to promise me in the first place; or (c) information contained in an automated “U-Mail” that didn’t accurately reflect my origin point or destination; was sent from an email address I couldn’t replay to; and notified of charges to my credit card for products and services I didn’t order.

Today, U-Hell helpfully informed me (“Do not reply to this U-mail; it will not be We-Read”) that in transit, my possessions have been heard to be … uhm, “shifting.” I tried to call to express undying I-Thanks for their U-Mail inquiring whether I was transporting ping-pong balls or unlidded crates of grapefruit, because I’d begun sleeping regularly and was falling behind on my panic attacks. But all I got was “Please stay on the line; a U-Call is important to us…”

So, luckily, I won’t be sleeping through my alarm and will be wide awake to begin the all-important process of determining how many irreplaceable pieces of priceless memorabilia from my award-winning career have been ricocheting around my U-Pod, thanks to the U-Truck’s “U-Patented ‘Air Glide!’ U-Suspension U-SystemTM.”  Thank God I didn’t get a wink of sleep breathlessly anticipating how much expensive computer hardware I’ll be replacing by spending all that big money ComicMix pays me.

But I’m laughing, I tell you, laughing at life … to the point of margaritas spewing out of my nose and onto the keyboard borrowed from one of my new housemates, which is now shorted out and won’t be available to replace the one that’s colliding with all those boxes of priceless and irreplaceable memorabilia. But that’s okay, because I think it’ll be bent just enough to look really good glued to the top of my Emmy®, right where that globe made of all those slender, fragile strands of gold used to be. Besides, what’s an Emmy® when you have an Inkpot Award, the sharp edges of which have been useful in responding to my irresistible impulse for self-mutilation, by making sure that the Wolverine claw stab-wounds never completely heal?

So, by this time tomorrow, I’ll be serenely, I tell you, serenely ignoring the U-Mail I can reply to: the one asking me to “Rate Your U-Hell Experience!” This customer-satisfaction questionnaire helpfully compensates for my obvious inability to express myself, by supplying multiple-choice answers to its questions. These range all the way from “Thrilled Beyond Even My Unrealistic Expectations” to “Even Better Than The Promotions On The U-Site When The Server Wasn’t Crashing,” helpfully enabling me to resist the temptation to type in “U-Suck.”

By the time U-read this column, the U-Pod will have arrived. But please don’t ask me how my Amazing Colossal Comic Book Collection fared, because I didn’t have a collection to entrust to U-Hell in the first place. That was lost by Wall-Eyed Van Lines, which moved me last year from New Jersey to the My-Hell of Pennsyltucky.

Now where the fuck is the lid to that blender…?

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases Can’t See TeeVee

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman – Scooby and the Geriatric Comics

 

Martin Pasko: The Age of Michael Jackson Comics

pasko-art-130801-5917889Before I Do This Thang for the week: I’ve been getting messages from readers. Apparently, I do have them. Or, as Bob Hope might have said, “I know you’re out there, because why else would Dolores be propping me up in that direction?”

These messages I’m talking about are all “Why do you use so many links?” Clearly, if you’re asking this, you’re not clicking on them. Hint: Some – not all, or even most, but some – of them don’t lead where you might assume they do. They are instead meant to be weird, “disconnective,” hit-or-miss jokes in and of themselves. So, as the most celebrated member of The Hair Club For Men once put it, “’Nuff said.”

Now, on to That Thang. Meaning I have to stop vamping with jokes about what I didn’t learn in San Diego the weekend before last, and, God help me, actually come up with a third and final part of my highly speculative and putatively uninformed rant to go with the first and second parts. [I say “putatively” because Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey, writes, “Aren’t the comics selling better than ever? What should I do?” (And, no; no link this time. Get off your fat ass and Google it.)]

If you’re just joining me here for the first time, please feel free – unless your ass really is too fat to allow you to lean over and reach your mouse or trackpad – to check out those previous parts. And maybe click on some on those links you’ve been skipping over. Go ahead. I’ll wait. It’s not like I have anything better to do.

Back now? Good.

One thing Iwasn’t joking about last week: SDCC really didn’t shed much light on whether the Big Two might be incrementally but profoundly changing how they think about creating and marketing comics. Specifically, that they might have to take back total creative control from the freelance talent, to better justify their claim that comics help generate new, original movie and TV properties – titles and characters that aren’t mere spin-offs from the oldest, best-known super hero “brands.”

But I remained in the dark not, as I facetiously suggested, because of the conditions endemic to the con itself, but, rather, because the Big Two’s massive “booths” at least appear to still be doing their dog-and-pony shows in much the samo-samo way as they have been since the beginning of The Gastrotrich Super-Star era and the annual “continuity stunt.” You know – the age of what I like to call Michael Jackson Comics. As in, “We’re going to keep rearranging our face because it gets us publicity even though we don’t entertain anybody anymore. (But we do have a few pet chimps who clap for us when we do it.)”

At first, superficial glance, little seems to have changed this year. There were the same long lines of people waiting for something, but you couldn’t quite be sure what because the crowds were too dense. And there were the same old book signings by the Flavors Of The Week – those comic book “creators” who have been rocketing out of obscurity and vanishing back into it just as fast, ever since Hollywood’s “‘bankable’ star” mentality was first applied to four-color pamphlets by, if memory serves, Jenette Kahn. She was the first Big Two publisher to wonder, for example, whether Superman might not sell better if it were John Byrne’s Superman.

And it did.

For a while.

Thirty years ago.

But this year at SDCC, when I took a closer look at those exhibits, and let my eye follow carefully where that long line was snaking to, it seemed as if more and more of those people were queueing up for a chance to glimpse some “teaser” footage from an upcoming movie or TV show, and the lines to buy signed copies of Flavor of the Week’s Superman or Smokin’ Hot Newcomer’s Spider-Man were shorter. The “brand” – the property – was what was making the loudest ka-ching, ka-ching.

But the people who decide what will be presented in these exhibits seem not to notice, and persist in announcing new comic book titles whose selling point is presumably the name of the creative talent rather than the super hero brand. Meanwhile, superhero feature films continue to succeed without being dependent on major stars in their casts, a phenomenon that is a reflection of a larger, industry-wide paradigm shift.

The early warning signs might be barely noticeable, but I really think they’re there. And it’s getting harder not to wonder whether someday – maybe sooner than even cynical me suspects – Disney and Warners will have convinced themselves that they can endlessly exploit their existing brands, through reboots not unlike those in the old annual face-changing stunts, without any help from their four-color pamphleteers. And if their comic book divisions will have ceased to yield new brands they can add to the product mix as break-out hits, they might start to wonder whether all those Flavors of the Week and their pamphlets are any use to them at all.

LATER TODAY: Emily S. Whitten Returns!

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY MORNING: Marc Alan Fishman

 

 

Michael Davis: The Gold Standard

davis-art-130730-7841477The following article is a lesson for young creators entering the business.

Remember, the comics industry is made up of relationships and the industry is filled with the bodies of young professionals who choose to go with the flow regardless of where that flow takes them or who that flow screws with.

Bad idea.

Be very careful who you hitch your wagon too and don’t throw a good friend under the bus just because it’s what everyone else does.

Thus begins the lesson…

There is a very short list of people I’d take a bullet for. Mike Gold is on that list. Mike and I have known each other for over 20 years. I was around three when I met him.

What?

During the time I’ve known Mike, he has not only been a good friend but also a real confidant and staunch supporter. Look, it’s not easy being my supporter. I’ve been known to bring drama into certain situations and the easy (if not smart) thing to do when that occurs is to step away.

Step away, quickly and with purpose.

Mike has always stood by me even to the point where that decision could have caused real risk to his position at the time.

Mike is like family to me.

Mike does not like the San Diego Comic-Con.

I love the San Diego Comic-Con.

Mike thinks SDCC has very little to do with comics and a bunch of other not nice things.

Mike is entitled to his opinion. I respect but disagree with Mike’s opinion.

Mike and I are still like family.

Thus ended the lesson.

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON: Even MORE Emily S. Whitten!!!

 

Doctor Who 50th anniversary special to be simulcast globally

  • News
  • July 27, 2013

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Initially reported by UK tabloid The Sun and quickly verified by the BBC, the 50th anniversary special episode of Doctor Who will be broadcast simultaneously across the world, touted as the largest simulcast of a drama ever.

The special has been sold to approximately 200 countries, so the amount of timing and cooperation required will be quite high.  Sources say the move was done to eliminate any chance of spoilers for people in countries who traditionally receive the episodes after the initial broadcast in the UK.

This would put the broadcast spread across four hours of the early afternoon (depending on time zone) in the United States, and in the early hours of the 24th of November on the far side of the world like Australia and New Zealand.

The special will be broadcast in both 2D and 3D.  Complete details have not been released on which version will be broadcast in which markets.  The special features the return of David Tennant and Billie Piper as The Doctor and Rose Tyler, as well as classic villains The Daleks and Zygons.  At San Diego Comic-Con, showrunner Steven Moffat claims he’s been “lying through his teeth” about what and who is in the episode, resulting in the resurgence of rumors of other unreported cameos, including Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, making only one on-screen appearance, in the Fox-produced TV movie.

When the 20th anniversary episode The Five Doctors was produced in 1983, it did not receive a similarly-coordinated release.  Indeed, American fans got to see the special BEFORE the UK.  The network of public television stations who were broadcasting the series got permission to show the special on November 23 exactly, which was a Wednesday.  The BBC didn’t show it in the UK till that Saturday, the traditional day of broadcast for the series in England.  By  a wonderful coincidence, November 23rd falls on Saturday this year, allowing the anniversary to take place on the day it originally aired with no schedule-juggling.

This plan is not only a huge PR coup for the BBC, it’s also a wonderful example of life imitating art.  In Last of the Time Lords, Martha Jones walked the Earth for nearly a year, spreading the tale of The Doctor, in preparation for everyone on the planet to think about him and chant his name at a precise day and moment, the resulting wave of psychic energy intended to give the Time Lord the power to undo the actions of The Master and save the day.  With the BBC setting up to do the very same thing, one can only wonder what the real-world wave of power might do.

Personally, I’m hoping it’ll provide the power to jump-start the working TARDIS that the BBC Radiophonics Workshop has secretly been working on for years.

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Saturday Morning Cartoons: A Loki Morning

  • Uncategorized
  • July 27, 2013

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Leigh Lahav wonders what all the fuss was at San Diego about Tom Hiddleston showing up…

And if you’re wondering what all the fuss was about yourself, here’s what happened:

He has an army…

Martin Pasko: Your Wolverine Claws

pasko-art-130725-3221572Yeah, I know that last week I promised you the third and final part of that earth-shattering rant that, as you know, went hugely viral and made me the new darling of the Internet.

I promised to report on what I’d have learned – evidence that supported or refuted my thesis about Mainstream Comics being unable to escape from the corner they’ve painted themselves into – at the publishers’ booths in the exhibit halls of the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con.

But I made that reckless and foolhardy promise before I’d actually been to the San Diego Comic-Con – or, at least, to what it has metastasized into in recent years. Oh, I’d heard all the stories, of course. But none of them do justice to the actual experience, which taught me that you can’t, in fact, learn anything at the San Diego Comic-Con…because can’t really hear anything over the sound of dozens of Jumbotrons trying to sell you things you don’t want, or see anything for the crush of, uhm, imaginatively-garbed bodies slowly taxiing through the Area 51-like hangar like some flying fortress of presumably human flesh.

Wait. I take that back. There are some things you can learn at Comic-Con. And, because I won’t be able to concentrate well enough to resume the serious business of earth-shattering rants until I can see and hear again – and the anti-depressants kick in three days from now – I’d like instead to share some of them with you.

1. There is a definite limit to the number of times you can tolerate bleeding from the chest because you are being poked by some asshole wearing Wolverine claws.

2. SDCC makes you grateful for word processing apps on smartphones. Mainly because there are so many competing WiFi hotspots in the exhibit halls, you can’t use the phone for anything else. I am, in fact, writing this column on my phone, during my hour-long walk back to my hotel. No prob; I love hour-long walks. Good exercise. Unfortunately, my hotel is only three blocks from the convention center.

3. Best way to deal with being poked in the chest for the third time by some asshole wearing Wolverine claws: Fling a handful of your blood in his face and chant, “Nyah-nyah, I’ve got the Hanta Virus…”

4. Always remember, when tempted to accept an invitation to the Eisner Awards, that they are not merely a new version of the old Inkpot Awards banquet, because they are no longer, in fact, a banquet. And when you are sitting through 30-minute anecdotes from dead artists’ children, reminiscing about how their dad sculpted “Eskimos” from soap bars when they were five, you will really want to be having the dinner you didn’t eat earlier because you thought you were gonna get food.

5. No one presenting or accepting an Eisner Award is as funny as they think they are, and the ones who are supposed to be, aren’t. And Doctor Who cast members who try to be are just FAAABulously embarrassing. However, this rule does not apply to Chip Kidd, who made me believe the Eisners really are the Oscars of the comics industry because now they have their own Bruce Vilanch. But only when Chris Ware wins something.

6. None of the panels or “events” is as entertaining as the looks on the faces of the guys picketing out front with “You’re a crawling piece of shit but Jesus loves you anyway” signs, while people dressed as the entire cast of Supernatural shuffle past them. Especially not the events you can’t get into without coming down with a virus by camping out on the sidewalk all night.

7. The virus you get from camping out on the sidewalk all night is very effective in dealing with getting poked in the chest by assholes wearing Wolverine claws.

8. The Eisner Awards are not, in fact, “the Oscars of the comic book industry.” The Oscars are smart enough to video, in a separate, earlier ceremony – and play back at the main event only in judiciously-edited clips – the awards for Best Translation of A Graphic Novel You Will Never Read About A Subject You Don’t Understand Originally Published In a Language You’ve Never Heard Of Before.

9. In the convention center there is one Starbucks concession for every 10 guests, and by Sunday at noon every Grande Hazelnut Frappuccino® is being spiked by 150-proof Captain Morgan’s, and you are wondering how you can find an asshole wearing Wolverine claws so you can hire him to stab you in the chest.

Please Note: The above are Just Jokes. I actually enjoyed the convention (as a guest) enormously, and the staff is terrific. Still the best show in the business, serious about comics amid all the Hideous Hollywood Hype, and everyone – guests and paid members alike – are treated well. My thanks to all the folk at SDCC for a memorably fun weekend!

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

Dennis O’Neil: Being “There”

oneil-art-130725-7613148Did you see me there?

Where’s there? Oh, come on…The San Diego Comic-Con! Where else? And, as I type this on Monday evening, are you perhaps just getting home. Are you frazzled? Exhausted? And are you happy? Was the adventure all you’d hoped it might be? Do you have, encased in plastic and two slabs of thick cardboard and tucked into your carry-on, that one special issue, the one you’ve sought for years. the one whose absence has left as yawning crater in the middle of your collection – finally, triumphantly yours? Have you met the person of your dreams, wearing, perhaps, an X-Men costume? Or had your picture taken with the celebrity who occupies a god niche in your psyche? (Okay, it cost you what you pay for a week’s groceries, but some treasures are beyond price.)

Hooray. That’s all well and good. But now the important question: Did you see me there?

If you did, I must have had some Dr. Strangey astral projection mojo working, because I haven’t been anywhere near Southern California this year. (Denver is as close as I got.) So – either I astrally projected (while napping?) or you saw some other septuagenarian chrome dome. I didn’t do any disembodied jaunting last week but…I did do something similar.

The late Arthur C. Clarke once said that any sufficiently advanced technology would appear to be magic to primitive people. (Let’s assume that “primitive” is relative.) Well, abra my cadabra, because while sitting upstairs in the dining room I spoke to a group of people in Lima, Peru – gave a talk and then answered questions. Mr. O the bilocated – at once in New York and Peru! Be in awe, you primitives!

The magic was, of course, technology, and not cutting edge technology, either. (Though, come to think of it, maybe this story would be better if it were.) What we were using, the attendees of the Lima Book Fair and I, was Skype, which is surely old news to many of you. Too me – not so old. I’d used it once before, to record something for use on YouTube, but I had the advantage of a tech savvy offspring at my elbow on that occasion. This time, Marifran and I were pretty much on our own, though we did have help from Eduardo, an affable cyberwizard from – where else? – Peru. I won’t say that all proceeded glitchlessly. (Does Dr. Strange ever suffer interference from, say, a snotty kid riding a Hogwarts broomstick?) But the glitches were minor and the event, I’ve been assured, was a success.

And just recently, a book I wrote about a dozen years ago became available as an e-book. So I guess I’m being dragged into the twenty first century, That, or I’ve taken up residence where eldritch forces are manifest. Either way, as the great prophet Bobby told us, the times they are a’changin’, and, there being nothing to do about it, let’s enjoy the ride.

Did you see me at the Con? Are you sure?

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Martin Pasko and the Big Show

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases and Sexy Kitties

 

 

 

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