Tagged: Superman

SDCC: Just Be Cos

  • News
  • July 30, 2007

at-the-back-of-the-dc-panel-2838431I’ve seen the Spirit of San Diego, and it’s wearing a costume.

 

Saturday sold out first at the San Diego Comic-Con and many dealers were wondering why the floor was more crowded on Friday.  Well, that’s because Saturday night is the Masquerade.  And if you’re wearing a nice costume you don’t want to, and quite often physically can’t, maneuver on a convention floor that’s even mildly crowded.  So you wander the many acres of convention center space between the rooms.

 

lego-star-wars-3205381And you pose for pictures.

 

Want to bring happiness to millions (or at least hundreds) in one day?  Come to San Diego on Saturday and ask people in costumes to pose for a picture.  They live for it, and I’m glad they do.  They are brilliant posers, having worn out the mirrors in their houses.

 

You don’t have to buy a ticket, you can do it on the sidewalk.  You don’t even have to have batteries in your camera, it’s the moment that counts, not the immortality.

 

Some of them are in this world; a sharp looking black haired guy in decent shape in a spot on Superman outfit.  He was standing in the back of the room during the DC Panel.

 

Some are in their own world, in a costume that barely suits (or fits) them.  And I wouldn’t be cruel enough to post their picture near this paragraph.

 

buddy-christ-4097419After a while you realize that no one human can know all these characters.  After a longer while you start seeing costumes when all the person is is extremely stylish.  I saw a guy in backwoods hippie gear and was thinking maybe Hillbilly Bears when I realized this is just how he walks the streets everyday.  I asked a woman to pose, thinking her outfit was something from Sandman but she was just a very happening goth chick.  And, like a true Shipoopi, she doesn’t get sore if you beg her pardon.

 

My favorite was the gathering of eight Doctors Who.  They’re not only well into their costume and character, they’re clearly having the time of their lives.  And when you take a picture or stop to smile back at them, you get a piece of it for free.

doctors-who-6-6075537

Overheard at San Diego, part 4

  • News
  • July 28, 2007

sdcc2007mystique-8078461Can we hear anything over this much hubbub? Of course we can… and our spies are everywhere.

Around aisle 2300: "I can prove the convention is too crowded. When a pretty girl walks by, and a second pretty girl walks by before you’re done staring at the first one, it’s too crowded."

Marv Wolfman: "The biggest celebrity here is Stan Lee. Everybody, young, old, knows who Stan Lee is, what he looks like, and what kind of personality he is. And of course everybody knows that Stan Lee created Superman."

At the "Writing About Comics" panel:

Tom Spurgeon: "I hope words continue to remain prominent in this field, becuase if we all go to video, I’m screwed."

Glenn Hauman: "Can I quote you?"

Tom: "Sure, and then I’ll link to you."

Douglas Wolk: "Good, and then Dirk can link to you linking to him."

 Douglas Wolk: "I’m a little tired of all these comics that want to a movie when they grow up."

Nisha Gopalan, EW: "Isn’t that Virgin Comics’ business model?"

Tom Spurgeon: "It’s a little amazing that Variety and Enterainment Weekly are covering comics, when distribution is so sporadic– it’s writing about this great book that you might be able to find on such and such a time and maybe in such and such a place."

In the audience at "The Black Panel":

"What is Marv Wolfman doing on this panel?"

"He’s a token."

Overheard at San Diego, part 1

  • News
  • July 26, 2007

Seventeen years ago yesterday in San Diego, Roseanne Barr sang the National Anthem at a Padres game.

While we can’t promise you anything quite like that from any Hollywood types in town for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International, we’re bringing you the most quotable things we can eavesdrop on.

At the Newark Airport terminal: "It’s tough to tell who’s going to the convention on this flight. You used to be able to tell at a glance." "Yeah, no one’s wearing comic book shirts." "Everybody’s reading Harry Potter, but that doesn’t tell you anything."

On the floor of the convention: "We’re opening up new boxes to sell books on Preview Night. In the first hour. I hope we’ve got enough to last the weekend."

Outside the hall: "I think they’re going to use those Superman bags as tents for emergency housing."

What have you heard? Send your snippets to overheardSDCC@tips.comicmix.com, or come up to us at the show– we’re the one’s in the ComicMix shirts.

RIC MEYERS: Kung Fu Popeye

  • News
  • July 22, 2007

popeye-8114692I suppose I could have titled this pre-San Diego Comic Con installment “Popeye Hustle,” but I think that would’ve given the improper connotation. The new four-DVD boxed set from Warner – Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938 – (available July 31st) is anything but a hustle. And, in fact, the present column title is all the more apt because there’s some of the best kung-fu I’ve seen recently within these first sixty Popeye cartoons.

   

“Kung Fu” actually means “hard work,” not “martial arts,” but there’s a lot of both on display here – from the labor the Max (and Dave) Fleischer Studios lavished on these cartoons to the more than ample martial arts expended by the Sailor Man and all his antagonists (especially Bluto) in every minute of these more than three hundred and sixty animated minutes.

   

I say “more than,” because, in addition to the dozens of remastered black & white original cartoons, the set also includes two of the justifiably famous “two-reel” color mini-movies: Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad (sic) the Sailor, and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves. If the Fleischer Studios had only made a feature length Popeye (as well as a feature version of their beautifully made Superman cartoons), they might have remained as eminent as the Disney Studio.

But this handsome, reverent, and exhilarating set will hopefully go a long way to returning them to their rightful pantheon, despite the hundreds of inferior Popeye cartoons made by other studios since 1941. These almost pristine (the remastering process retains the rough edges of the cartoons as they were originally released) nuggets of aggressive mayhem are a welcome blast of fresh air in the fog of politically correct nonsense, which elicits waves of nostalgic pleasure with each spinach swallow and successive bout of frenzied fisticuffs.

Popeye’s legendary theme song, and oft-repeated quotes of “I yam what I yam,” and “that’s all I can stand, I can’t stand no mores,” clearly marks him as an inspiration for Bugs Bunny’s later feistiness (not to mention “this calls for a little stragedy,” and “don’t go up dere, it’s dark”) — and the set’s extras make that ultra clear. To say that there’s a wealth of featurettes and pleasant surprises is putting it mildly. Each disc has at least two engrossing docs detailing Popeye’s (and animation’s) extraordinary history, voices, music, and characters, as well as audio commentaries and mini-docs that they call “Popumentaries.”

The icing on the cake are a whole bunch of other Fleischer Studio cartoons “From the Vaults” – that is, the era before the 1930s, when cartoons were just starting and fascination, if not delight, could be found in inventive silence. At first these ancient animations seem too crude to be bothered with, but watching the just-drawn likes of Koko the Clown dealing with an animated “live-action” fly soon leads to many minutes of amazed viewing. (more…)

MARTHA THOMASES: Dorothy Parker

  • News
  • July 21, 2007

dorothy-parker-200x218-3330504Dorothy Parker was a poet, short story writer and critic for The New Yorker in its heyday. When I was first writing, I wanted to be Dorothy Parker. Well, actually, I wanted to be Nora Ephron, who wrote a column in Esquire at the time, and who said that she had once wanted to be Dorothy Parker. A quick trip to the library, and I had an entertaining week reading her poetry. You probably know at least one of her poems, “News Item,” which goes:

Men seldom make passes

At girls who wear glasses.

Her literary and theatrical criticism, under the nom-de-plume of Constant Reader, was also hilarious, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. You can catch up with her poems, short stories and reviews in the omnibus Portable Dorothy Parker.

Mostly, however, she was celebrated for being the only woman at the Algonquin Round Table. In a group that included Robert Benchley, Harold Ross, George S. Kaufman, Harpo Marx, Alexander Woollcott and others, Parker was the only woman considered witty enough to be a regular (although Edna Ferber and Jane Grant, Ross’ wife, sat in occasionally).

It was an attractive fantasy for an unpopular girl in boarding school. I was not a person who got to sit at a table with boys. The only males who listened to me were my teachers, who were paid for it. Naturally, I looked for a way to be sought after, instead of merely tolerated. I spent the next twenty years writing, trying to earn my place at the table. If only I had known that the easiest thing to do was to work for a comic book publisher.

I’d freelanced for Marvel in the 1980s, but being on staff at DC was an entirely different animal. All of a sudden, I had everyone’s telephone number, and if I called someone for no apparent reason, my call was still answered happily. I could go to one of the Warner Bros. movie screenings and have people save me a seat. I could sit at any table at any bar near a convention and be welcome. In fact, I was often the only woman at the table.

It was heady stuff. True, these were not the prep school boys whose attention I had craved in my teens, but instead comic book editors, artists and writers. They were often smart and funny, but hardly ever blond or WASPy. Still, it felt as if I was sitting at the table with the cool kids. I was getting laughs telling jokes to guys who weren’t my husband. This was better than therapy!

(more…)

DENNIS O’NEIL: Do You Believe In Magic?

  • News
  • July 17, 2007

Here it is Tuesday evening and we’re still debating. Should we go to the 11:59 showing of the new Harry Potter flick at the local 21-plex or catch one of the early showings in the morning?  Pros and cons on both sides.  But we will see the movie within the next 24 hours; count on it.

Although I’ve enjoyed the previous films, I can’t call myself a Potter fan.  I haven’t read any of J.K. Rowling’s novels, though I love Ms Rowling’s bio: single mom writing in a café becomes hugely successful author, celebrity, and megamillionaire within about a decade, without becoming a robber baroness.  But Marifran’s read the books.  Oh yes indeed.  And so have daughters Meg and Beth.  So I’m pretty up on the Hogwarts scene and when the final volume in the series arrives in a couple of weeks, I expect my conversations with my wife to be conducted in monosyllables until she reaches the last page and learns Harry’s fate.

I’m surprised that these things are so popular, as I was surprised at the resurgence of interest in J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings saga and the huge success of the movies made from Tolkein’s trilogy. The reason is, I thought we were past believing in magic. 

Oh, sure, you don’t have to actually believe in something to enjoy stories about it.  But we do have to be able to accept it on some level. It helps the willing suspension of disbelief your English teacher told you is necessary to the enjoyment of fiction if you can allow that what you’re being told about exists, or could exist, or at least might have existed. Hero stories are about as old as civilization, and the tale-tellers always supply a reason why their protagonists have extraordinary powers.  In classic Greece, for example, and later in Rome, superpowers were explained by their possessors either being gods, or half-gods, or children of gods, or gods’ special pals.  Then plain ol’ magic, origin unknown, was used to rationalize superhuman feats in folk tales like those in A Thousand and One Nights. 

(more…)

MARTHA THOMASES: That’s What Friends Are For

  • News
  • July 14, 2007

martha100-8504049Over the weekend, I read the entire trade paperback collection of The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen. I had anticipated a rollicking journey through my childhood, since I’d read most of these stories as a kid.

Alas! It was not to be.

The stories are fun, don’t get me wrong. Jimmy Olsen, the Everyboy of the DC Universe, is transformed from a working guy into a futuristic genius, a fat man, a werewolf, a porcupine, a turtle boy, a giant, a Bizarro and more. He travels to the future with the Legion of Super-Heroes, and he’s courted by two separate beauties from other worlds. As a kid, even a girl-type kid, I identified with Jimmy, and wanted to be Superman’s Pal.

Now, reading these stories as an adult, I still find them funny, but also oddly bleak. Jimmy Olsen is a lonely, lonely man. Superman may be his pal, but their interaction in these stories seems limited to story set-ups. Superman brings Jimmy a collection of stuff he found in outer space, leaves it for the young reporter to write about, and mayhem ensues. Sometimes Superman saves him, sometimes the bad stuff wears off, and sometimes Jimmy is sharp enough to save himself. In every case, he’s terrified that he won’t fit in, and his friends will shun him.

Professionally, Jimmy is on thin ice. He gets fired time after time, and often is forced to go and join a carnival freak show to earn a living. For some reason, there is always a freak show conveniently in town, with a side-show slot for him. Maybe things were different when these stories were written, but I thought most newspapers required at least a high school diploma to get a job. Doesn’t Jimmy have any other marketable skills? Why doesn’t he consider a related career, maybe in advertising or public relations, where his writing ability and photography skills would earn a more reliable income? (more…)

MICHAEL DAVIS: Con Man

  • News
  • July 13, 2007

michael-davis100-6319230When I first moved into my new home it seemed like every single day for a month I received a sales call from a mortgage company. They always asked for a Mr. Fong. When the calls first started I told them politely that I was not Mr. Fong and asked to be put on the Do Not Call list.

The calls kept coming and for a while I was still polite. I mean, I know how these things work. Mr. Fong had my phone number before me and the mortgage companies computer keeps calling the number. What that means is that every time I asked to be taken off the list, who ever I’m talking to simply hangs up the phone without honoring my request.

Fast forward to a few weeks of getting these calls. Now I’m pissed. So the calls went from this:

THEM: Hello, can I speak to Mr. Fong?

ME: There is no one here by that name, please take me off your call list.

To this:

THEM: Hello, can I speak to Mr. Fong?

ME: There is no damn Fong here! Do I sound Asian??? Stop calling me!!

I realized that this company was full of a bunch of idiots who simply don’t care to listen to you. So I devised another tactic. This is the way I handled the next call:

THEM: Hello, can I speak to Mr. Fong?

ME: (With Enthusiasm!) Speaking!

THEM: Mr. Fong, we see you qualify for a reduced mortgage!

ME: (With more enthusiasm!) WOW! GREAT!

THEM: We would like to send someone out to talk to you. When would be a good time?

ME: (With crazy enthusiasm!) NOW!

THEM: We can send somebody out tomorrow. Is this your current address?

I told them no, the address was wrong then I then gave them a fake address in the HOOD!

The next day at around 4 PM I got another call.

THEM: Hello, can I speak to Mr. Fong?

ME: Yes?

THEM: Mr. Fong. Hi. We must have taken down the wrong address. Can we double-check it?

ME: Why do you say that?

THEM: Well sir, the address you gave us is liquor store.

ME: I assumed you must like being drunk because you keep calling me.

THEM: I don’t understand.

ME: I have told you guys a million (bad word) times I was not Mr. (bad word) Fong!

THEM: Who are you?

ME: None of your (bad word, bad word, REALLY bad word) business.

With that, I hung up. I have not gotten any calls since then, so I guess it worked. What does this have to do with this weeks rant? Nothing! I just love that those idiots wasted their time as they have been wasting mine. And maybe this will help others who find themselves in this predicament.

Now for this weeks rant. No! It’s not a rant. This is a total love fest for the San Diego ComicCon International! Sorry Vinnie Bartilucci, you will have to wait until next week to find issues to debate. This week my friend it’s all about the LOVE!

(more…)

Superman’s Only Villain?

  • News
  • July 11, 2007

236715820_62a6cc8c84-5157448In keeping with the upcoming movie The Dark Knight, the next Superman movie will be titled Man of Steel. The villain…? Aww, you guessed it.

Kevin Spacey told Variety he will be back as Lex Luthor in Superman: Man of Steel. He met with director Bryan Singer and firmed up the deal to star in the movie, which is expected to feature a Michael Dougherty (Superman Returns, X-Men X2) screenplay. Hopefully, Superman: Man of Steel will sport an original plot and not be simply a warmed-over third-rate remake of a previous effort. C’mon, Warners, we’re talking about the family jewels here!

Production is expected to begin next year with a 2009 release.

MICHAEL H. PRICE: Amazing Colossal Sculptures

price-brown-100-3053862Last week’s dispatch from this quarter drew some parallels between cartooning and Fine Artsy facial studies, as provoked by an exhibition called The Mirror and the Mask: Portraiture in the Age of Picasso, at the Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. A companion opener at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has less of an academic mouthful of a title – Ron Mueck, plain and simple – but digs comparably deep into the function of portraiture during Times of Anxiety (which is to say, all times) by concentrating upon the assembled work of one present-day artist. Namely, Ron Mueck, Muppeteer-turned-monumental sculptor.

So I’ll be expecting my Hearty Handshake any day now from the Greater (than what?) Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, on account of doing my bit for provincial tourism and the hometown’s arts-and-farces scene. These exhibitions, of course, are anything but provinciable.

Mueck will require little introduction, although some of his now-cryptic, now-blatant clay-into-silicone signature-pieces are more widely recognized than his name. The Untitled (Seated Woman), a smaller-than-real piece of unnervingly lifelike resonance, has been an object of worldwide fascination since its début in 2002 as a fixture of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Send this one out on institutional loan or place it in temporary storage, and the North Texas enthusiasts will mount a massed protest. Mueck’s namesake exhibit has previously graced the Brooklyn Museum and the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa. It will remain on view at Fort Worth’s Modern through Oct. 21.

I find that Mueck’s works, though engaging if approached cold and without preamble, make a great deal more sense when regarded in a pop-literary context – all due respect to the stodgier curatorial realm. The tinier human figures might leave the absorbed viewer feeling a great deal like Mr. Swift’s Lem Gulliver, awakening to find himself confronted with motionless Lilliputians. Mueck’s larger-than-life figures reduce the observer, conversely, to the state of the awestruck expeditioners of 1933’s King Kong, edging warily past a fallen Stegosaurus. Mueck sums up his approach with a simple manifesto: “Life-size is ordinary.” Which recalls this echo from Old Hollywood:

“It’s not big enough!” raged the filmmaking artist Merian C. Cooper (1893-1973), on so many occasions that his Hollywood crews learned to anticipate his demands – by thinking in unreal proportions and translating such impressions to the movie screen.

How big? Well, that 1933 accept-no-substitutes original Kong is Cooper’s chief surviving brainchild. (more…)

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