Tagged: Superman

Scribe nominees announced

  • News
  • March 9, 2007

iamtw-2493113The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers has announced the nominees for the first annual Scribe Awards, honoring excellence in licensed tie-in writing for books published in 2006. The 2007 Scribe awards will be given out at a ceremony at Comic-Con in San Diego.

Their first annual Grandmaster Award, honoring career achievement in the field, will go to Donald Bain, author of the Murder, She Wrote novels and the ghostwriter behind Coffee, Tea or Me and other bestsellers.

The nominees are:

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Convention Intimacy

  • News
  • March 9, 2007

michael-davis100-6133833I just got back from WonderCon in San Francisco, the week before that I was at the New York City Comic Con (NYCC).

These cons were fun and, for the most part, well run. I say for the most part because the NYCC people still have some work to do with regards to how they treat professionals and, more important, the fans. WonderCon ran smooth that’s because no one runs a convention better than Fae Desmond and the staff at Comic Con International. They treat each fan like they were the only fan there. The NYCC people have a good heart and I think any problems they had came from the staff at the Javis Center and not the convention people.

I had a good time at both but there is something missing from these cons and for my money something missing from all the really big cons. That something is intimacy. Now I can hear you asking the question: what does intimacy has to do with a comic book convention?

 

My answer is… everything.

Comics is an intimate medium, or it was once upon a time. Comic book fans will wait on a movie line for hours and consider it part of the experience. Comic book fans think that Star Trek marathons are cool, even if they were born decades after the show first aired. Comic book fans don’t just go to conventions seeking the issue of Spider-Man they need to complete their collection. Comic book fans go to conventions to be with like-minded people. They go there because if they want to they can dress up like a superhero and not be afraid. They can talk about a battle between the Hulk and Superman with the seriousness it deserves. Comic fans go to conventions because they are safe. Safe to be who they are, safe to say what they want.

These are important things.

Think not? Well let’s just say you are a comic book fan and you live in South Central L.A. You think you can stroll the street with your Captain Kirk outfit on without taking some flack?

You are walking down a South Central street a group of young men are walking towards you; they are members of a street gang. They approach and the leader stops and talks to you:

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Keep your eye on the body

  • News
  • March 7, 2007

dailynewscapdead-5664270I got a note from a long time comic book reader on Wednesday. He was incensed that Marvel disgraced themselves by killing Captain America. Worse, they did it sneakily, without telling the retailers this was the issue so it sold out to the fan boys before the general public could see the bloody body for themselves.

Marvel certainly got a nice boost from the coast-to-coast coverage Captain America’s death received.

But, is Captain America – Steve Rogers – really dead?

It used to be that a death to a major character was a major event. Writers would find themselves running out of interesting stories to tell with a character and decided to shake up the title character’s life by killing off a familiar face. Spider-Man writer Gerry Conway has always said that’s why Gwen Stacy had to go.

That happened time and again, at both DC and Marvel and it made the fans uneasy, since you never knew what would happen next. That certainly helped sell comics for a while. Then, killing the title character seemed the next logical step. Jim Shooter and Jim Starlin helped pioneer that with the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel and then there was the phone in stunt that saw Jason Todd, the second Robin bite the big one.

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Taking license

  • News
  • March 7, 2007

Let’s face it, we live in a hyper-capitalist society.  Everything’s a commodity, and the worlds of business and entertainment are so inextricably linked that items about business deals have all but become entertainment in their own right.

And that’s cool when a spinoff of a story is also another form of that story, as with the Superman: Doomsday DVD or the upcoming DVD coming out from Eagle One Media based on the Voltron: Defender of the Universe comics from Devil’s Due and utilizing those books’ content from the comic books from Devil’s Due Publishing. (Apparently Voltron is big business — not only is the "animated digital comic production" DVD due in June, but World Event Productions is developing "a new interactive series and the release of the first-ever OVA," and there’s even talk of a for-really movie.)

But when Marvel Entertainment decides it’s going to "own 2008" with tie-in products for the Iron Man and Hulk movies due out next spring, and signs deals with Hasbrow, Hallmark, Fruit of the Loom and other companies that make all sorts of stuff that isn’t storytelling — well, it just makes one hope that kids (and adults) who buy the stuff are busy making up their own scenarios as they’re being owned.

DC announces first D2DVD release

  • News
  • March 5, 2007

superman_doomsday-4851955Following Marvel’s lead, DC Comics is entering the direct-to-DVD animated feature business with the first of a slate of programs featuring their popular heroes.

First at bat is Superman Doomsday, based on the historic Death of Superman storyline from a decade ago. Previewed at this weekend’s Wondercon in San Francisco, the DVD will be released in September and carries a PG-13 rating. Adam Baldwin voices Superman, Anne Heche Lois Lane, and James Marsters plays Lex Luthor. Marsters is no stranger to the Superman mythos, having played Brainiac on the Smallville teevee series.

DC is also adapting Darwyn Cooke’s brilliant DC: The New Frontier for D2DVD release.

Reboots abound!

  • News
  • March 4, 2007

bobgreenberger100-5877925With J.J. Abrams now confirmed as not only producing and scripting but also directing 2008’s Star Trek XI, the buzz has begun on the latest reboot of a beloved franchise. As one might imagine, fans of the series have been divided over whether or not this has been necessary, a debate we’ve all heard before.

The entire notion of a reboot is an interesting one because, looking back, reboots were largely throwing ideas against the wall to see what might stick. While there were fans of The Flash, there was certainly no groundswell of support demanding DC Comics bring Jay Garrick back. Instead, management created Showcase as a title to try new things and after three issues of straight-forward adventure, they thought it was time for something different. As legend has it, someone thought the time might be right for a new super-hero and all heads turned to the last editor with any success as characters without S-shields and bats: Julius Schwartz.

Instinctively, Schwartz knew Jay Garrick and his mercury-helmet felt too dated. Things in the 1950s were fresh and new, sleek and shiny. He kept the name and the powers and recreated from the ground up, perhaps pop culture’s first reboot.

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Black Betty screams just for you

After Dark’s Black Betty speaks to ComicMix about To Die For!, the scoop on Superman’s changes, our update on teevee news, 

All this, Timeline, more news and serious thrills on ComicMix’s eighth exclusive Podcast — available right here:

 

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Vitriol across the ocean

  • News
  • February 27, 2007

Budgie calls our attention to another anti-comics screed from the (London) Times Online entertainment columnist Kevin Maher, this time writing about the TV series Heroes.  Not only does Maher begin his article with a "Holy fill-in-the-blank, Batman!" cliché, but his entire point is about how "there are no subjects and no areas of modern life that cannot be infected by the inane juvenilia of comic-book lore," emphasis ours.  What, did Superman disintegrate his teddy bear when he was a kid or something?  Budgie assures us this contempt is nothing new for Maher, whose bias ought to make his editors think twice about assigning him to write about anything remotely comic-related.

Writers take on JLA movie

  • News
  • February 25, 2007

jla1turner-8308610Via Sci-Fi Wire, Variety reports that Warner Brothers has hired husband and wife team Kieran and Michele Mulroney to write the script for its hoped-for Justice League of America movie. It’s the first major action the studio has taken on the project, the trade paper reported. The studio isn’t saying which heroes may be included in the film.

Development of the film is complicated by the fact that Warner has already revived its Batman and Superman film franchises, with Christian Bale’s Batman Begins and the upcoming The Dark Knight and Brandon Routh’s Superman Returns and its upcoming sequel. The studio is also developing a Wonder Woman film.

shaw_crewman-7865638Kieran and Michele Mulroney wrote the screenplay for the horror film Mirrors, which is in pre-production with Kiefer Sutherland attached. Kieran is also an actor, with credits in Enterprise, Seinfeld, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, among others.

Ain’t I A Woman?

  • News
  • February 24, 2007

martha200-3734293For as long as there has been a comics’ press, people have been wondering why there aren’t more women reading comics. And often those people wondering are, themselves, women: Maggie Thompson (who in 1960 co-published Harbinger, one of the first comics-themed fanzines back), The Beat‘s Heidi MacDonald, Trina Robbins (whom I’ve loved since the days of underground comix), cat yronwode of Eclipse, among many others.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Yet, like these women, I read comics. In my case, I read superhero comics. And I loved them. For all that time, when I was a girl, then a young woman, then a woman, a wife, a mom, I loved them. I still do.

How can this be? Don’t women hate superhero comics? Don’t we hate mindless violence, shallow characterization, demeaning stereotypes? Don’t we crave emotional connection and involving storylines?

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