Tagged: Superman

The Race Card, by Michael Davis

  • News
  • April 4, 2008

I’m writing a book on race and…hey, I’m serious. I’m writing the book with my boy Rusty Cundieff, whose long list of director credits include the films Fear Of A Black Hat and House Party 2. Rusty was also the director of The Dave Chappelle Show. I came up with the project three years ago and Rusty came aboard two years ago. Why has it taken so long? It’s one of those projects that just takes the time it takes (hear that, O?). The book is called Every Thing You Wanted To Know About black People But Were Afraid To Ask.

I had a fair amount of interest from some publishers over the last two years but lately there has been a flurry of interest from many publishers. I have no doubt the recent focus on race in the presidential campaign has made the book a lot more relevant.

The book is written by two black men and is based on our experiences.

Now, what does that mean? It means that two black men are going to talk about our experiences as black men. We do not speak for every single black person. Rusty and I are also professional television writers who LOVE to write comedy, so you KNOW what that means…fun, laughs and WHITE WOMEN!

If you have the ability to read and reason then you must feel like I do about racism and that is that racism is just plain stupid. I just don’t get racism at all. It’s stupid, stupid, STUPID.

I mean to dislike someone just because of the color of their skin is nuts. The only thing dumber is hating on someone because of his or her religious beliefs. What’s next, hating someone because they eat apples and you like oranges?

The rest of the world should take a page from the comic book world. We don’t see color. I have been to hundreds of comic book conventions all over the planet and never felt even the hint of racism. Now there were some times in the convention city where racism was a real issue.

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April Fools Day Round-Up: Were You Fooled?

  • News
  • April 2, 2008

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When it comes to April Fools Day on the ‘Net, I’m not sure where I stand. On one hand, I’m endlessly entertained by the creativity various companies show in their efforts to pull the digital wool over readers’ eyes. It’s also an amazing promotional opportunity, providing websites that normally wouldn’t be players in the viral marketing scene a chance to flex their creative muscles and attract new readers.

On the other hand, however, it’s an editor’s worst nightmare. Every story is likely to be a hoax, and it’s damn near impossible to break any authentic news due to the inherent skepticism of online readers for a 24-hour period.

It’s a bit of a personal hell for me, too. Every year, I wake up on April 1 and remind myself that anything I read that day is probably an April Fools Day prank. And every year, I end up getting excited about a story anyways, only to realize that it was just another joke — more often than not, this happens after I go public with my excitement, adding to the embarassment. In the end, I’m reminded of Charlie Brown trying to kick that football time and time again, even though he ends up on his back in the dirt every time he makes the attempt. I feel his pain.

So this year, I’ve put together a list of some of the highlights from this year’s April Fools Day on the Interwebs. It’s nowhere near a complete list, just some of my personal favorites from the world of comics and comics culture, as well as a few notable non-comics pranks. Feel free to add your own to the ‘Mix (pun totally intended) by adding a link in the comment section at the end of this article. (more…)

Happy Birthday: Mr. Mxyzptlk

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An imp from the 5th dimension, Mr. Mxyztplk is an inveterate troublemaker and jester. Because he’s from another dimension, Mxyzptlk is not bound by our universe’s laws and can produce a variety of magical effects with a single thought.

Shortly after arriving on our world, Mxyzptlk encountered Superman, and the the imp has delighted in tormenting the Man of Steel ever since that first meeting. The only way to get rid of Mxyzptlk is to trick him into saying his own name backwards—this sends the imp back to the 5th dimension for at least 90 days.

It never lasts long, though, and soon Mxyztplk is back to tease and confuse Superman yet again.

 

The Writes Of Spring, by Dennis O’Neil

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  • April 1, 2008

As I sit down to write this, I’m less than five hours from midnight on March 23rd and so it might be appropriate to wish you a Happy Easter, or Happy Pasha if you’re an Oriental Christian, or Happy Purim. Or maybe I should give a shout-out to Aphrodite, Ashtoreth, Astarté, Demeter, Hathor, Ishtar, Kali, Ostara – all deities who were celebrated around the spring equinox and, as far as my extremely limited and unreliable knowledge goes, all of whom were connected to fertility, which figures: Spring equinox = end of winter = new life = let’s have a party.

Or…let’s let one stand for all and just celebrate the goddess whose name gives the holiday it’s name: No less an authority than The Venerable Bede, an early Christian scholar, wrote that Easter was named after the Saxon goddess Eostre, and if you can’t trust the Venerable Bede, well…

I like Easter, and tomorrow I may do something celebratory, even if it’s only to walk in the park down the road. (Yeah, us old guys really know how to tear it loose.) It’s a real holiday, as evidenced by all the ways it’s been celebrated over the millennia – see the goddess list above – and I think that means that it acknowledges and celebrates something deep in our collective culture, our life on this planet, probably our genomes. The catalogue of such holidays is short: there’s the various festivals of light that occur around the winter solstice – Merry Christmas, all – and around the fall equinox that generally involve harvests and eating, and Easter, et. al. All happen at seasonal changes and all involve the Basics: birth, death, light, dark, and survival.

You don’t have to believe in the literal truth of a mythology to accept the realities that underlie it.

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Supermoney: The Superman Trial and Jerry Siegel’s Estate

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  • March 30, 2008

supermoney-1584927For those who came in late… As has been widely reported, the Federal District Court ruled somewhat in favor of the estate of Jerry Siegel in its lawsuit to have all publishing rights to the Superman story in Action Comics #1 be taken from Time Warner’s DC Comics subsidiary and given to Jerry’s heirs. The decision runs 72 pages, but at heart is the judge’s ruling that because the property existed before Action#1, “work for hire” stipulations do not apply.

The New York Times did a good job covering the story; Mark Evanier, as would be expected, did a better job. For one thing, Mark got co-creator Joe Shuster’s first name right. The New York Times did not.

Whereas there is much cause for celebration, before we start dancing in the streets we should look at what’s at stake here.

Only the original concepts – only Superman, Clark Kent, the costume as portrayed in that initial story, and the abilities unique to Superman in that story – are in play. Perry White, the Daily Planet, Lex Luthor, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Bizarro, kryptonite, Jimmy Olsen and the rest are not on the table. Only the domestic rights are in play, and even then the estate would be in something of a co-ownership position with DC Comics. So don’t look forward to that Eros Comics Superman series quite yet.

Sadly for the Siegel family, this does not bring to an end a fight started by Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster 60 years ago. Actually, it’s just warming up.

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ComicMix Radio: Battlestar Galactica Takes Off For The Final Season

After this week’s marathon broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel, Battlestar Galactica begins its final voyage — but where is it headed? Executive Producer Mark Verheiden fills us in on all he can dish here on ComicMix Radio and in an exclusive interview you’ll find on ComicMix later this week, plus:

— An historic court decision may change Superman as we know him

— Calling All Robots begins production

— The Lone Ranger back in the movies – Hi Ho!

—  And an  exclusive Graham Crackers Comics variant could be in the mail to you — if you win by e-mailing us at: podcast [at] comicmix.com

So live a little… and just  Press The Button!

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-1158272 or RSS!

 

Celldweller and Devil’s Due Remix ‘Halloween’

  • News
  • March 29, 2008

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For those in search of some appropriate mood music to accompany Devil’s Due Publishing’s Halloween: Nightdance, it sounds like the crew at DDP has you covered.

The publisher recently posted a free download link for a techno/rock/orchestral remix of the original Halloween movie theme, courtesy of  the musician known as "Celldweller" — or maybe it’s courtesy of the artist formerly known as Klayton. I can’t be sure.

Either way, here’s the musician bio from the news section of the DDP site:

Celldweller – the versatile outlet of the artist, performer, producer, songwriter, programmer, and remixer Klayton, fuses the electronics of drum & bass and techno, with rock and orchestral elements, meshing the synthetic and the organic, darkness with beauty, into a cohesive blend entirely its own. Celldweller’s sound has captured the interest of the Film/TV/Video Game industry having licensed every track from the Debut Celldweller album, including credits in James Farr’s Xombified Online Series, recently adapted to comic form by Devil’s Due Publishing.

Credits include: “CSI” (Superbowl Spot), "Spider-man 2,” "Spider-man 3,” “Superman Returns,” “Silent Hill,” “Doom,” "The Last Legion,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Supercross,” “XXX: State of the Union,” “Constantine,” “Catwoman,” “Redline,” “The Punisher,” “Dirt,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Paycheck,” “Timeline,” “Mindhunters,” “National Security,” “Bad Boys 2,” “Crackdown” “The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift,”  “Need For Speed: Most Wanted,” “Project Gotham Racing 3,” “Enter the Matrix” and “XGRA.”

You can download the track via the DDP site.

The Weekly Haul: Reviews for March 27, 2008

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  • March 27, 2008

This week has all the makings, as an underdog wins book of the week honors, Marvel tries its darndest to rev up Skrullfest ’08 and Atlanta traffic finally almost kills me. Without further ado, the reviews…

Book of the Week: Blue Beetle #25 — When this first series first started up, I loved the concept but found it too hit-or-miss to pick up on a regular basis. After reading this latest issue, I can firmly say that not only has writer John Rogers found his stride, he’s turned this book into one of DC’s best.

In the conclusion to an epic whole-world-at-stake storyline, Jaime finally comes into his own as a hero, using a whole lot of trickeration and stick-to-it-ive-ness to defeat the bad aliens. Rogers uses those evil aliens (who are in a way the scarab’s source) to effectively entrench Jaime as the definitive Blue Beetle – no small feat.

It’s a perfectly executed balancing act between superhero fun and tense action, with plenty of credit owed to Rafael Albuquerque’s art. The two hilarious intrusions by Guy Gardner and Booster Gold put this book over the top.

Runners Up:

New Avengers #39 — Of the three books that crammed the upcoming Secret Invasion down my throat, only this one had any effect. Brian Michael Bendis combines the expected handful of brilliant personal exchanges with an intense fight between a mysteriously super-powered Skrull and Echo and Wolverine. Ultimately, it’s a tense and foreboding book, although I’m still on the fence about the big event.

All-Star Superman #10 — This book is so consistently entertaining and touching that it’s like clockwork. Now, if only it was like clockwork regarding the release schedule… That aside, the story of Superman’s impending demise continues and (maybe?) concludes in this issue, which essentially serves as an elegy to his glorious life. Beyond the affecting contemplations on mortality, what Grant Morrison does especially well here is capture the sense of round-the-clock heroism of Superman’s life.

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German Authorities Use Comic to Combat Extremism

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  • March 26, 2008

In the great book Freakonomics, one of my favorite stories is the one detailing how the writers of the old Superman TV show used a storyline to give a negative depiction of the Ku Klux Klan, and that alone was one of the most effective methods of turning public opinion against the Klan.

That story came to mind when I came across a couple of articles detailing efforts to combat Islamic extremism through comics.

In Egypt, Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance has been distributing copies of an Arabic edition of a 50-year-old comic based on Martin Luther King Jr.’s life. The comic is available for download in Arabic and English from the HAMSA Web site.

"The Montgomery Story" was published in 1958 and helped inspire the American civil-rights movement in the 1960s. In 2008, it was translated and designed by young reformers in the Mideast. It features full-color panels depicting the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a campaign to end segregation on buses in the capitol of Alabama. The comic book ends with a section on “how the Montgomery Method works,” outlining essential techniques of nonviolence.

I also came across this article in the Globe and Mail on a comic book designed to combat Islamic extremism produced by officials in a north-German state. The comic, Andi, follows a youth who dates a Muslim girl, and the girl’s brother comes under the sway of an Islamist "hate preacher." (Apologies for the small cover image, below, but it was all I could track down.)

The comic is distributed to schools and is intended for an audience from 12 to 16-years-old. It’s available online in PDF form right here. I learned German in grade school, but sadly since then my knowledge of the language has wittled away to a few numbers and swear words, so I couldn’t read the two available issues.

The article says Muslim response to the project has been positive. From the article:

The comic, printed in 100,000 copies and distributed to every secondary school in Germany’s most populous state, aims to show young people the difference between peaceful mainstream Islam and the violent, intolerant version peddled by militants.

"We were always careful not to hurt feelings and anger people by painting a caricature of Islam," said Hartwig Moeller, head of the NRW Interior Ministry. "We had to make clear we weren’t aiming against Muslims, but only those people who want to misuse Islam for political aims."

Happy Birthday: José Luis Garcia-Lopez, Brian Bolland, and Mark Verheiden

dcp1g1-4128278Today is a popular birthday for comic book creators! Three very different comic book luminaries all share March 26.

José Luis Garcia-Lopez was born in Spain in 1948 but moved to Argentina in 1952. Growing up he worked on several Argentinian comic strips, and in the late 1960s he began doing romance titles for Charlton Comics. Garcia-Lopez moved to New York in 1974 to work for DC. He’s best known for his art on Superman.

Brian Bolland was born in 1951 in Lincolnshire, England, and began drawing at age 10. He went to art school and published work in various underground magazines, then met Dave Gibbons at a comic convention in 1972. Gibbons recommended him to Bardon Press Features and Bolland began drawing comics professionally. In 1977, he found work on the new British comic 2000 AD, and soon became a regular artist on Judge Dredd. In 1979 Bolland began working for DC Comics, doing both covers and shorts. Perhaps his most famous image is the cover to Batman: The Killing Joke.

Mark Verheiden was born in 1956. He started writing comics in 1987, creating The American for Dark Horse. The following year he wrote his first Aliens comic. Verheiden then wrote several Superman stories and a Phantom maxi-series for DC Comics. He also works in television and film, and has contributed scripts to Smallville and other series. He currently serves as co-executive producer of the popular Battlestar Galactica television series.

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