Did you see the season-ender two parter on COMMUNITY? Well, even if you missed it you still need to catch up with Allison Brie (“Annie”) as she talks about her cut on where the series will go for the next season, and where she will be in the meantime. And want to cut up some old Marvel Comics (insert scream here) plus [[[WONDER WOMAN]]] chokes before getting off the ground (insert cheer here).
Did you see the COMMUNITY season finale? Drop us a comment below!
George R. R. Martin. Image via Wikipedia
As part of the coverage of [[[Game Of Thrones]]] debuting on HBO, the New York Times quoted author George R. R. Martin delivering a speech at Ambercon 3 in Wichita, Kan., on May 31, 1981.
Every would-be writer needs comic books. I certainly did. I can still vividly recall my discovery of comic books, followed closely by the revelation that this reading stuff was actually good for something. Because comic books had it all over Readers. Comic books had pictures, and so did Readers, but in comic-book pictures somebody was flying or punching somebody, while in my Reader little Sally was crying about her little red boat. Even in my prepubescent days I had this vague feeling that Wonder Woman had it all over Jane, although I couldn’t put my finger on the reason. I did know that watching Spot run was a real drag when I could watch Krypto the Superdog fly instead. And I knew that if they ever met, Krypto would bite Spot’s head off.
So I read every comic I could get my hands on, and my reading got better and better. My teachers soon began to marvel that I read with such “expression,” while the rest of my class read . . . like . . . this. I knew the reason. You need a lot more expression for, “Aha, Superman, now my red kryptonite will turn you into a BOILED EGG!” than you do for “See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run.” So if the schools don’t do it, remember comic books. Maybe your kid won’t be as quick as I was, and regular comic books won’t do, but even that’s no problem in this day and age. There’s always the undergrounds. “Tales of the Leather Nun” should do it every time.
Of course, anybody who’s ever read Wild Cards knows how much George loves his comics.
via NYTimes.com.
We’ve received all the covers for DC Comics July solicitations, including the long awaited Games, the New Teen Titans graphic novel from Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. And when I say long awaited, I mean two decades long– which kinda ties in with all the DC Retroactive titles coming out, including our favorite, Green Lantern reuniting the team of ComicMix contributors Dennis O’Neil and Mike Grell.
Take a look.
While at the C2E2 retailers summit a few weeks ago, a few details fans might be excited to find out about were accidentally leaked. At a DC Nation panel, the mid-western retailers were shown a few slides of “in-production” artwork, and DC’s Jim Lee and Dan DiDio were teleconferenced in with Marvel’s Axel Alonso to prime the pump for the 2011 summer event. While cameras and laptops were forced off before the event, a few local shop owners emerged from the panel with some juicy tidbits. Here’s the skinny:
• Current Marvel heavyweight Matt Fraction will be penning the five part mini-series with co-plotters J.T. Krul and Tony Bedard from DC. All that was said was “Access (from Marvel Vs. DC 1) returns a far more powerful man than when we left him.” Krul said. “He finds a way to tap into the power cosmic and gets his mitts on the White Lantern… but that’s really only the catalyst to it all.”
Meet Sarah Butler – star of the new version of I Spit On You Grave! Sarah fills us in on how the remake came about, and after talking to her, we think she is a GREAT choice for the Wonder Woman reboot! See what you think…..
Don’t forget that you can now enjoy THE POINT 24 hours a Day – 7 Days a week!. Updates on all parts of pop culture, special programming by some of your favorite personalities and the biggest variety of contemporary music on the net – plus there is a great round of new programs on the air including classic radio each night at 12mid (Eastern) on RETRO RADIO COMICMIX’s Mark Wheatley hitting the FREQUENCY every Saturday at 9pm and even the Editor-In-Chief of COMICMIX, Mike Gold, with his daily WEIRD SCENES and two full hours of insanity every Sunday (7pm ET) with WEIRD SOUNDS!
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVE FOR FREE or go to GetThePointRadio for more including a connection for mobile phones including iPhone & Blackberrys.
BURBANK, CA, (February 8, 2011) – Primetime television stars Nathan Fillion (Castle) and Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) lead a diverse array of performers as the voices behind Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, the
next entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. Building up to the release of the highly anticipated live action film, Green Lantern, in theatres June 17, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights arrives on Blu-Ray™, DVD, On Demand and for Download June 7 from Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros.
Animation.
Fillion provides the voice of the animated film’s central character Hal Jordan, the human Green Lantern assigned to Sector 2814 (which includes Earth). Fillion has starred in several primetime television series including Desperate Housewives, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He has also developed a popular
cult following as a pair of Joss Whedon’s heroic captains: Capt. Mal Reynolds in the space-western series Firefly and follow-up film, Serenity; and Captain Hammer in Whedon’s internet sensation Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Fillion returns to the DC Universe after his successful turn as Steve Trevor in the animated film Wonder Woman, and has performed voice work on Justice League, Robot Chicken, The Venture Bros., and several Halo video games.
Moss gives voice to Arisia, a young recruit forced into her first mission on just her third day as a Green Lantern. Prior to starring as the ever-evolving Peggy Olson in AMC’s ground-breaking series Mad Men, Moss was featured on The West Wing, Invasion and Picket Fences. Moss has been active in voiceovers for animation with previous roles in
Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, Freakazoid! and It’s Spring Training, Charlie Brown!.
The voice cast for the animated Green Lantern: Emerald Knights also features actor/spoken word artist Henry Rollins (Sons of Anarchy, The Henry Rollins Show) as Kilowog, Jason Isaacs (the Harry Potter films) as Sinestro, legendary professional wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper (They Live) as Bolphunga, Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy) as Abin Sur, Kelly Hu (The Vampire Diaries) as Laira and Wade Williams (Prison Break) as Deegan. Radio Hall of Fame commentator/talk show host Michael Jackson voices the esteemed Guardian, Ganthet.
Bruce Timm is executive producer of Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. Directors are Lauren Montgomery, Jay Oliva and Christopher Berkeley.The full-length animated Green Lantern: Emerald Knights complements the Warner Bros. theatrical release of the highly anticipated live-action major motion picture Green Lantern,Green Lantern: Emerald Knights will be distributed by Warner Home Video as a Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack and 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, as well as single disc DVD. The film will also be available On Demand and for Download.
NEW SCRIBE ON DC’S DOC SAVAGE!!
From DC Comics’ Blog-
April’s DOC SAVAGE #13 kicks off a six-issue story arc written by extraordinary artist (and Doc Savage fan) J.G. Jones, whom DCU readers will recognize from his outstanding cover work on Final Crisis, 52, Wonder Woman and of course Doc Savage and First Wave.
The first part of J.G.’s globe-trotting adventure kicks off in the Egyptian wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spans all the way to Cairo, which gives him the perfect excuse to give us this painting of DOC SAVAGE fighting a mummy.
THE BOOK CAVE MEETS RAVENWOOD THIS WEEK!!
Available later today, this week’s episode of THE BOOK CAVE puts Ric and Art across the table from the writers for Airship 27’s latest Pulp Anthology, RAVENWOOD: THE STEPSON OF MYSTERY VOLUME 1! Tune into to hear how a pack of the best writers today bring back a little known pulp classic for a modern audience!! Then stay tuned for the ALL PULP news!
Check out THE BOOK CAVE! http://www.thebookcave.libsyn.com
The big news this month is that Subterranean Press’ new collection, UP THE BRIGHT RIVER, will be shipping any time now. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy, you might want to check out these two online reviews we’ve added to the site, one from SF Crows Nest and one from Strange Horizons.
One thing we forgot to mention is that with the publication of this book, the forthcoming books page is now empty! No new titles have been announced from any publisher. This is the first time this webpage has been blank in years, hopefully it won’t stay that way for long.
Today, January 26th, would have been Phil’s 93rd birthday. In honor of this I’m asking everyone to read a short story or essay by Phil. Then, if you are on facebook, go to this fan page. If you have not already, “Like” this page, and then you can write on the Wall. Post the title of the story or article you read tomorrow. Just something like, “In honor of Philip José Farmer’s 93rd birthday, I just reread his short story ‘Sail On! Sail On!’ today.”
Now, if you won’t have access to any of Phil’s work tomorrow, here is a link to one of his great short stories, The Sliced-Crosswise Only-on-Tuesday World. Or you can visit the articles page where you will find several “read it here” links.
For those of you who don’t use facebook, you can still participate. Read a story, then reply this email and tell me what you read. I will go to the Farmer facebook page and say, “My friend Tim Howller read the article ‘The Lord Mountford Mystery’ today in honor of Phil’s 93rd birthday.”
With any luck, so many people will see their friends reading a Farmer story tomorrow and posting about it, maybe we’ll get some to do it that are not on this newsletter list. Or how about this; 951 people currently “like” that fan page. Let’s see if we can make that number go up by the end of the day, let’s see if we can create any kind of buzz today.
One final note for you. The 30% off discount on the Estate Sale (which can go up to 50% off if you purchase multiple books) will end on February 9th. After that only the volume discounts will remain.
That’s all for now, don’t forget to read some Farmer today!
DOCUMENTARY ON ‘MOST HATED MAN IN COMICS HISTORY’ ANNOUNCED
PRESS RELEASE:from sequart.com
Sequart Research & Literacy Organization is proud to announce a documentary film about the most hated man in comics history: psychiatrist Fredric Wertham.
Tentatively scheduled for an early 2012 release, Diagram for Delinquents: Fredric Wertham and the Evolution of Comic Books (directed by Robert A. Emmons Jr.) will study Fredric Wertham’s crusade to link comics with juvenile delinquency, which helped spur burnings of comics in the United States, Congressional hearings into the role of comics and juvenile delinquency, and the creation of the Comics Code Authority as a censoring body. The film will explore these events in light of comics’ subsequent evolution into more sophisticated material that is no longer primarily children’s fare. To illustrate this story, the film will use recreations and Wertham’s own files, almost none of which has ever been seen before.
(By the way, we’ve already lined up some great people to interview: Bart Beaty, Amy Kiste Nyberg, and Douglas Wolk!)
To make this film a reality and tell this important story, we’re asking for your help. We’ve set up a page on Kickstarter where you can pledge donations through 24 April 2011. In return for your generous help, we’re offering various rewards, from the movie poster and Wertham DVD to various Sequart products — and even an array of credits in the film. (Also, pledging through Kickstarter is currently the only way you can order our other upcoming documentary, Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts, and our upcoming book on Planetary, Keeping the World Strange.) We’re looking for $6,000 in pledges, and even a dollar donation helps! Any money over our goal will be used to support Sequart’s overall book and film production.
Thank you for supporting this project and helping to ensure that this captivating and important chapter in comics history is told. For more information, go to kickstarter.com/projects/sequart/diagram-for-delinquents and fredricwertham.com.
THE FILM IN MORE DETAIL:
Beginning in the late 1940s, Wertham began publishing articles linking comics to juvenile delinquency. This work culminated in his now-infamous 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent. Burnings of comics were reported across the US, and Congress held hearings into the matter, which helped spur the creation of the self-censoring body the Comics Code Authority (only just recently dropped by DC and Archie Comics).
Wertham was himself a contradiction. Although forever linked with artistic repression, he was a social crusader whose writings on the damaging effects of segregation were used as evidence in the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Although forever linked to the Comics Code, he claimed to be against censorship. Wertham developed his theories about comics while caring for juvenile delinquents, which biased his analysis by ignoring healthy juveniles who read comics — a fact that has caused his case to be often used as a negative example in statistical analysis. But his theories about comics, highlighting Wonder Woman’s themes of lesbianism and bondage, claims of Batman and Robin’s homosexuality, and the excesses of the era’s crime comics, had a lasting impact on the medium.
Wertham’s last book, in 1974, defended the culture of comics fanzines, almost as a belated and lackluster apology for his involvement in the by-then infamous Congressional hearings. This led to him being invited to speak at the New York Comic Art Convention, where the audience heckled him. He died in 1981.
Featuring interviews from comics scholars and professionals, this documentary will not defend Wertham. Instead, it seeks to place the wider story of Wertham and his effects on comics into a historical context.
The film’s title comes from Wertham’s own notes, in which he claimed comics provide a “detailed diagram for delinquents.”
ABOUT THE FILM’S CREATORS:
Diagram for Delinquency is written and directed by Robert A. Emmons Jr. It is produced by Robert A. Emmons Jr., Peter J. Gambino, Julian Darius, and Mike Phillips; with first assistant director Justin J. Emmons; first assistant camera Stephen P. McMaster; and production assistant Andrew Tan Mai. The film is produced in association with Gambino Boys Studios and Scifidelity Pictures.
ABOUT SEQUART RESEARCH & LITERACY ORGANIZATION:
Sequart’s first documentary film, Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods, was released in 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Its follow-up, Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts, is scheduled for release later this year.
Sequart is a non-profit organization devoted to promoting comic books as a legitimate artform. To this end, it publishes books, produces documentary films, and maintains online resources that encourage comics scholarship.
Please send manuscripts as a .DOC, .DOCX or .RTF attachment to trembleshorrormag@gmail.com with a cover letter in the body of an e-mail. Do not send your manuscript in the body of an e-mail, it will automatically be deleted. Make sure your manuscript uses standard formatting like 12-pt New Times Roman font and double-spacing. On the first page of your manuscript, please include your name, address, phone and e-mail in the upper-left corner and the word count rounded to the nearest hundred in the upper-right.
For complete guidelines, visit http://www.tremblesmag.com/
Moonstone Entertainment, Inc. is releasing interviews done with the creative staff behind its upcoming CHICKS IN CAPES anthology. The first of these is with noted comic writer and herstorian, Trina Robbins!
Trina Robbins-CHICKS IN CAPES Contributor/Herstorian/Writer/Creator
1.Trina, can you share some of your experience, both in general where writing is concerned as well as specifically relating to comics and super heroes?
TR: I was very lucky to have a schoolteacher mother who taught me to read and write at the age of 4, and I’ver been doing both with great gusto ever since. I’ve been writing professionally for over 30 years, books and comics, and there’s nothing I’d rather do. Just sitting at the computer and pressing those keys is for me a pleasurable experience.
I was thrilled when Lori invited me to contrinute to Chicks In Capes, because I feel that for the most part, comic books don’t “get it” when it comes to superheroines, so this was my chance to do it right! It frustrates me that a potentially great character like Wonder Woman can be written really well by one writer, but then someone else can take over and make a mess of her. But Witchwoman is MINE, all mine, and nobody can mess with her!
2. You have a story featured in the Moonstone anthology, CHICKS IN CAPES. What’s it about?
TR: It’s a little bit political and a little bit feminist, because it takes place in a (I hope not!) possible future where the extreme Christian right wing has taken over. And of course, as expected, one of the things they do is oppress women. It’s a world in which women are encouraged to go back to the kitchen and be good little wives and mothers, nothing more, and any woman who breaks those rules is in danger of being considered a witch. And yes, they burn witches! I will say no more!
3. You’re also known as an authority on comics, referred to as a ‘herstorian’ by some. Do you think an anthology such as CHICKS IN CAPES has the potential to be significant in publishing history, specifically relating to the portrayal of female characters?
TR: Yes! We need to see more creative concepts of superheroines, and we need to see them from a woman’s point of view. I’m not saying men can’t write good women, many men do — the Hernandez brothers immediately come to mind — but I do believe that women tend to know what women like, because, being women, it’s what THEY like, no? But it’s revolutionary, by golly, to see not just a woman’s take on an already established superheroine, but to see a woman create her own superheroine. As a comics herstorian, I can tell you that that’s only been done once before, by the incredible Tarpe Mills, who created Miss Fury in her own image in 1941.
4. What are the ingredients to building a good super hero character and/or telling a good super tale in prose?
TR: First of all, to tell a super tale you need a whole helluva lot more than page after page of fight scenes, you need something called a plot. Plots have beginnings, middles, and ends, and it amazes me how some comics writers don’t seem to know that.
As for creating your character, I happen to be a fan of Joseph Campbell and his writings on the universal hero of myth. You’ll find that all mythic heroes, from whatever culture, have certain things in common. They need to be orphaned, they need to be demi-gods, with one mortal parent and one divine parent, they need to die, at least symbolically, by going underground to the land of the dead, and they need to emerge again and heal the land. Not every hero bears all these traits, but (s)he has to have some of them in order to resonate in our collective unconscious. Superman, Wonder Woman, batman, and Captain Marvel all contained these traits, which is why they have survived so long while lesser superheroes fell by the wayside. I think my Witchwoman also bears these traits.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
, 
