If you’re one of the millions of Americans who are pissed you’re too big for Underoos, you can take comfort in the knowledge that next spring adult sportswear manufacturer Salvage is going to be coming out with a line of clothing that incorporates Superman, Batman and next year’s Dark Knight movie.
No word on Wonder Woman being part of the line. Some will find this to be quite disappointing; personally, I’m holding out for Swamp Thing.
The summer is now officially over and our minds are already beginning to turn to… the Christmas movie season. But first, let’s take stock and see where we are with comic book-based movies. We have just one left for release this year, the feature version of Steve Niles’ 30 Days of Night, but that’s waiting for the appropriate Halloween period.
Much has been made of the $4 billion summer box office and how it set a new record, until you adjust for inflation and then it doesn’t beat 2002. Studios say that’s okay, because the hits will also prove strong sellers this holiday season in DVD (regular, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, collect them all!). With average ticket prices creeping up to $6.85 (it’s $10.25 in
Here’s an updated look at the genre films released this year with their total box office to date followed by their budgets. Again, following that logic, 300 remains the clear winner by traditional
Ghost Rider, $115,802,596 / $110,000,000
300, $210,250,922 / $65,000,000
TMNT, $42,273,609 / $34,000,000
Spider-Man 3, $336,530,303 / $258,000,000
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, $131,451,007 / $130,000,000
Stardust, August 10, $31,912,000 to date / $70,000,000
I’m sure most readers will agree that we all bring our own unique views to our entertainment experiences, our own desires and prejudices and lifetimes of baggage. And many of us try to partake of those experiences bearing that baggage in mind, allowing for it or disclaiming it or even using it to enhance our POVs.
For the average consumer, baggage is something you try not to let get in the way. But a certain subset clings to it like a badge of honor. That’s the portion of the crowd that brags of specialized knowledge, and will accept nothing less than that same level of specialization in their entertainment. Which is silly, in my opinion. You may be a rocket scientist, or a medical intern, or a lawyer, or even a secretary, but the people who write movies and comics and whatnot, well, they’re just storytellers.
This is not to say that a certain verisimilitude isn’t welcome. A story needs to be internally consistent, after all, to keep you involved in its world. But if you’re from Cleveland and the movie you’re watching is supposed to be set in that city and it’s pretty darn clear that it was shot in Vancouver, it can take a bit more effort to stay with that story when you keep going "But that’s not the street I used to walk to school on!" If you’ve just come home from a day in the newsroom, opened up the latest Superman comic and noted that the Daily Planet scenes don’t resemble your job in the least, I can understand the irritation. Many’s the time I’ve watched actors pretend to type or play a musical instrument as just something to do with their hands, not as though they were actually performing the task at hand. (By the way, how things have changed on the typing front since the advent of PCs and laptops; one of the things I love about the TV show The Office is how the actors actually type IMs to each other during filming; they look like they’re at their desks doing actual office work, just like me!)
But obsessing on these comparatively minor things to the point where they ruin your enjoyment of the story is, to my mind, just silly. It’s not seeing the forest for the trees. Even if they’re palm trees and the story’s set in a northern climate.
Via Maud Newton comes word that Grace Paley has died at the age of 84. I met Grace a few times through the War Resisters League, working the table at rummage sales. She was like the greatest possible combination of my idol and my grandmother, Her short stories were an important part of my personal literary odyssey, and her poetry was so personal to me that I read some at the memorial service for Kim Yale. You can get a collection of all her short stories. Her non-fiction prose, often about her time spent on the picket line to end war, combat racism or sexism, or her trips to Viet Nam, can be embarrassing in their enthusiasm and honesty. Once, years ago, she agreed to write a Superman story, which never came to be. I thought it would be cool for Martha Kent to talk to other moms in Washington Square Park.
For me, this passage from one of my favorite stories, says it all:
The kids! The kids! Though terrible troubles hang over them, such as the absolute end of the known world quickly by detonation or slowly through the easygoing destruction of natural resources, they are stilll, even now, optimistic, humourous, and brave. In fact, they intend enormous changes at the last minute.
What is up with heroes today? I just got back from Wizard World Chicago and as I was walking around the con I took notice of the posters, billboards and other comic company signage. What I observed with little exception is the look on the heroes faces… they all looked mad. I mean they looked pissed.
I ask again, what is up with heroes today?
Do all the comic companies have a template for posters? Stop me if you’re seen this: the hero or heroes are standing with a smoke filled background or battlefield usually the background is an orange or red hue. They stand with this look of utter anger. They all look like the first words they would say to you upon meeting you at a funeral is I will kick your ass!
I remember when Superman would… smile. Wow, what a concept a hero who stands for truth, justice and the American way smiling once in a while. I remember when Superman was a role model and he would stand there with his hands on his hips legs firmly planted on the ground looking out at the reader with a HUGE smile on his face.
Heck, I remember when Bat-Man would smile from time to time. I saw a poster at the DC booth with Wonder Woman looking out at the viewer with that “mad look.” From what she looked like on that poster I am now sure that even comic book characters suffer from PMS.
Hey, I’m sure that there are posters and characters out there that smile or project a more positive attitude. I just don’t see them. Now Marvel and DC know their audience but there seems to me to be an effort out there to make everybody “hard,” as the rappers say. This look is not new to the comic world. In fact it’s ripped off completely from Hip-Hop.
When’s the last time anybody ever saw a rapper smile on an album cover? The “Hard” look is everywhere. Look at high fashion models and that stupid look… football players… baseball players… heck, now opera singers stare out from their posters looking like Biggie Smalls.
As I said before Marvel and DC know their audience and they are the market leaders, so this is what the public must want.
But (as you knew there would be) …
Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. Fish are jumpin, and the cotton is high. Or so I’m told. Living in a major metropolitan area in the twenty-first century, I have to take such things on faith.
This summer, the fun times for someone like me are largely political. The presidential election is over a year away. The first primaries are six months away. Nothing is going to be decided any time soon, so I can pretend it will all turn out for the best.
I spent the summer I was 15 going “clean for Gene,” campaigning for Eugene McCarthy, who was running against Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic nomination on an anti-war platform. Four years later, I ran as an alternate delegate for George McGovern. Four years ago, I nearly got arrested outside the Republican convention up the street from here. Presidential campaigns are fun!
Which is not to say they couldn’t be much more fun. The problem is that presidential candidates tend to be politicians. They spend all their time hustling campaign funds, writing policy, and meeting the public. They go on the Sunday morning news shows and show how serious they are. They go on Oprah or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to show they’re regular folks who can take a joke.
They don’t save the world from alien invasions. They don’t even fight crime.
Presidential campaigns would be a lot more fun if, instead of Republicans versus Democrats, it was Marvel versus DC. For example debates between:
Captain America and Superman on immigration reform.
Luke Cage and John (Green Lantern) Stewart on affirmative action.
Thor and Wonder Woman about the separation of Church and State.
Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne on the inheritance tax.
Storm and Aquaman on global warming.
The Punisher and Batman on prison reform.
Professor X and Green Arrow on family values.
The Avengers and the Justice League on national security.
The official Comics Should Be Good “Reason to Love Comics” for Monday was my man Keith Giffen. (“My man” in the sense that I agree that he’s totally awesome, not that I’ve ever met the guy.) And once again, I must demand Ambush Bug trade paperbacks to make the world the kind of place it should be.
The Irish Independent looks at the graphic novel adaptation of the first of Eoin Colfer’s “Artemis Fowl” books.
Comic Book Resources talks to Neil Gaiman via the magic of video.
Comic Book Resources has also drunk the DC Kool-Aid and is trying to convince us that we ever cared about Booster Gold. Sorry, it’s not working…
The Beat has San Diego photos, with commentary – your money quote: “Nothing is sadder than a Superman with a droopy vinyl crotch.”
Elliot S! Maggin, author of the greatest Superman novel ever (sorry, Tom De Haven, it’s Miracle Monday), is running for Congress. Hey, if Gopher could make it in, I think he’s got a good chance. [via The Beat]
Sci Fi Weekly interviews Neil Gaiman, reviews Elizabeth Bear’s Undertow, and sets John Clute to wind up Jay Lake’s Mainspring.
The Golden Duck Awards, for excellence in science fiction for children, were presented at TuckerCon, this year’s NASFiC, over the weekend. The winners were:
[via SF Scope]
From Howard Margolin of Destinies: the Voice of Science Fiction, we get this discovery of these cyrstal caverns buried a thousand feet below Mexico’s Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan desert.
This has been quite a year for Superman fans; the deadly remnants of planet Krypton were discovered in a mine in Serbia this past April (see Kryptonite Discovered By Scientist).
And if you look all the way down at the bottom of the cave, you can see Ursa and Non…
What if the story of Jekyll and Hyde were based on a real person, a true case? And what if there were someone alive in the present day that had the same horrible curse?
This is the premise of the new BBC mini-series Jekyll
The six episode mini-series features Doctor Tom Jackman, a man who doesn’t know who his parents were, having been found as an abandoned baby in a railway station. For the past several months, Dr. Jackman has been having black-outs during which another force is inexplicably inhabiting his body. Along with this darker personality that seems to lack any morals, there is a physical change. Jackman’s alter ego is actually younger, thinner, two inches taller, and has borderline superhuman strength and speed. Jackman soon finds out that the famous story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was based on a real person who lived and died in the 19th century. Now Jackman struggles to keep his life in control and his family safe, a family he prays that his own “Mr. Hyde” will never find out about lest he decide to attack them.
On Sunday at San Diego Comic-Con, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers held a mid-afternoon program where their first Scribe Awards were handed out.
Member Andy Mangels played host to a small but enthusiastic crowd as they watched winners in attendance collect their prizes. The association was formed so the best-selling category of fiction could be acknowledged as a category of its own, joining groups for authors of Thrillers, Mysteries, Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction.
There were six categories and Jeff Mariotte snagged two of them in a bit of a surprise given the volume of works submitted.
The winners:
Speculative Fiction, Best Novel Adapted: Superman Returns by Marv Wolfman
Speculative Fiction, Best Novel Original: 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead by Stephen Niles and Jeff Mariotte
General Fiction, Best Novel Adapted: Snakes on a Plane by Christa Faust
Best Novel Original: Las Vegas: High Stakes by Jeff Mariotte
Young Adult All Genres, Best Novel: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Portal Through Time by Alice Henderson
Grandmaster, honoring career achievement in the field: Donald Bain.
Bain was on hand to accept the award in person, thrilled tghat his accomplishments, incouding over 80 novels, were recognized by peers. The IAMTW (www.iamtw.org) is accepting nominations for works in published 2007 with the awards scheduled for next year’s convention.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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