Don’t the name fool you. FREAKS OF NATURE is a reality show that introduces viewers to extraordinary people who possess the power to control, manipulate or conquer nature, performing feats that could harm or kill the average human. Sounds like super-heroes to us! We talk to show host Tyler Harcott (JUNKYARD WARS) about the amazing people he’ll showcase on the new Weather Channel series. Plus THE KILLING is back – again – and some big bucks for BRAVE & BOLD #28.
In Universal Home Entertainment’s 2 Guns, when an attempt to take down a drug cartel blows up in their faces, two undercover operatives are forced to go on the run together, though neither knows that the other is a federal agent. Suddenly, everyone on both sides of the law wants them dead, and their only hope is to trust each other. Featuring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, we celebrate the Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD release on November 19, by revisiting some of the most memorable buddies in blue.
Axel Foley & Detective Rosewood – Beverly Hills Cop
While Eddy Murphy and Judge Reinhold have made names for themselves in today’s pop culture, it’s easy to argue that Beverly Hills Cop launched their now successful film careers. With Axel as the mouth behind the duo, and Rosewood as the partner getting him out of trouble each time, there match up is as timeless as the film. The 1980s film proves itself to be a classic was slated to make its way to television this fall, as a series featuring Axel’s son, Aaron Foley (played by Brandon T. Jackson). While the pilot wasn’t picked up to series, both critics and fans excitedly welcomed it.
David Starsky & Ken Hutchinson – Starsky & Hutch
Based on the popular 1970s series, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson hilariously star as two street-smart undercover cops that bust drug deals with the help of their connection with the underworld boss, Huggy Bear. Stiller and Wilson bring the classic back to life and add their own flavor with their comedic talent audiences have come to love them for. And who else is better matched to play the role of Huggy Bear today than the 1970s inspired pimp himself, Snoop Lion (aka Snoop Dog).
Mike Lowrey & Marcus Burnett – Bad Boys
‘Bad Boys,Bad Boys, what’cha gonna do, what’cha gonna do…’ you know the rest. While the film was not based on the addicting early 90’s show about real-life police busting drug deals and ordering donuts – it was the first film that arguably catapulted the then-television stars Martin Lawrence and Will Smith to movie stardom. Proving that they haven’t aged, Lawrence and Smith teamed up again for more action in Bad Boys II in 2003.
Lee & Carter – Rush Hour
What do you get when you cross a very loud-mouthed LAPD detective with a Martial Arts cop visiting on assignment from Hong Kong? You get an odd couple that works perfectly, when it is Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Directed by Brett Ratner, the hilarious combo go from battling a drug lord to save a little girl that rivals Chan’s karate skills, to fighting crime in Las Vegas in matching outfits.
Martin Riggs & Roger Murtaugh – Lethal Weapon
Mel Gibson and Danny Glover literally redefined the action genre with their roles as L.A.P.D. detectives Riggs and Murtaugh. While there’s no 5th film in the works currently we still can’t get enough of the banter between the two of them and of course, Gary Busey aka Mr. Joshua.
Terry Hoitz & Allen Gamble – The Other Guys
Mark Wahlberg is tough and Will Farrell is funny, the perfect combination for a memorable buddy cop film, like The Other Guys. They play the underdogs striving to gain respect from their precinct by solving a crime and bringing down a multi-billionaire, played by Steve Coogan.
Det. Alonzo Harris & Jake Hoyt – Training Day
Before he teamed up with Mark Wahlberg in 2 Guns, Denzel Washington played crooked detective Alonzo Harris opposite rookie narcotics cop, Ethan Hawke in the Spike Lee directed project. Known for his roles of the noble and good guy (think Remember the Titans) fans were shocked and impressed to see Denzel Washington do such a good job playing the bad guy.
In order to win your very own copy of 2 Guns on Blu-ray, simply answer the following question:
Which actor portrays Papi Greco in the film?
Edward James Olmos
Javier Bardem
Benicio Del Toro
Luis Guzmán
Send us your answer before 11:59 p.m., Thursday, November 21. The decision of ComicMix‘s judges will be final. The contest is open only to residents of the United States and Canada.
“You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’”
George Bernard Shaw
“Back to Methuselah” (1921)
President Barak Obama is a visionary. Which is great. It’s important for the President of the United States to be a visionary, to be able to inspire. That’s how Barak Obama became President in 2008.
But once elected, it’s not enough to be a visionary. You need to know how to put that vision into effect.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy knew how to do that. Ronald Wilson Reagan knew how to do that.
President Barak Obama – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – does not.
The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, is in real trouble. The website is a disaster – where is Oracle when we need her? – and those who have been able to sign up are finding that their personal health care providers are not participating and that only a limited amount of hospitals are participants. A woman speaking to Brian Lehrer on NPR a couple days ago told him that the only hospital she can go to under the ACA is Lenox Hill in Manhattan, and while Lenox Hill is a very fine institution, the woman lives out on the Island, as in Long. (And for those of you not in the metropolitan New York City area, trust me, when you are sick enough to need hospital care, you do not want to drive on the Long Island Expressway as your life is ticking away and you are crawling along the asphalt at as much as 10 miles an hour.) Meanwhile insurance companies are happily cancelling policies because they don’t measure up to the ACA’s parameters because the premiums for ACA approved policies are more expensive.
(Once again the insurance companies have figured out how to make a buck off of people’s miseries – I can just hear the board of directors of Horizon, Aetna, Oxford, Cigna, and all the rest at their meetings: “Okay, no more lifetime caps, no more pre-existing condition bans, but here, look at Paragraph IV for example – everyone has to have maternity care in their plan, which means we can charge the client for that even if the client is male. And that’s just Paragraph IV. Yes, no worries, we can make up for any potential losses and we have the ACA and the President to thank for that.”) And the Repugnanticans are having a field day, gleefully attacking our Marxist, Maoist, Socialist, Kenyan Muslim President every which way they can. And though you, my faithful readers, know that I am a staunch Democrat and supporter of the man currently living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I gotta say…
What the fuck, man!
You go and approve the hiring of a Canadian tech company to build the web site? And to make matters even worse, it’s a company that has a botched record! To quote from the Washington Times (granted, a very conservative paper, but they are right in this):
“Canadian provincial health officials last year fired the parent company of CGI Federal, the prime contractor for the problem-plagued Obamacare health exchange websites, the Washington Examiner has learned.
“CGI Federal’s parent company, Montreal-based CGI Group, was officially terminated in September 2012 by an Ontario government health agency after the firm missed three years of deadlines and failed to deliver the province’s flagship online medical registry.”
For someone who is about jobs, jobs, jobs for Americans, I just don’t get it. Why didn’t the President just go to Microsoft or Apple? Why didn’t he call up Bill Gates or Steve Jobs (before he died, of course) and ask them for advice, i.e., give me the names of the best and the brightest in the IT biz. I want them to build what I believe will be the most important website in American history.
That’s what I would have done.
Seriously, man, what the fuck?
Now I hate working for a micro-manager. You know the type – he or she has got his or her nose in your face every second of every hour of the workday, and just won’t leave you alone to get your job done.
But the President of the United States has to be, in so many ways, a micro-manager. A hands-on guy. He – or she? Go, Hillary! – has to know what’s going on, has to have his – or her. Go, Hillary! – nose in your face every second of every hour of the workday. The President always has to be one step – or a hundred yards, or a million-zillion miles – in front of the crowd.
Because ultimately, as that plaque on Harry Truman’s desk read – The buck stops here.
And it doesn’t do any good to admit to that after the fact, as Obama did last Wednesday.
Once again, closing windows on my computer so you can open them up on yours.
The Literary Darknet of Independent Publishing: “The invisible, generally unregulated ocean of written content coming onto the market from the self-publishing community is, in some ways, a literary equivalent of the Darknet. This tremendous volume of content is far greater than any current social-based review system can handle, not only from a sexual content standpoint, but from a review and discovery standpoint.”
In anticipation of the December 3rd release of Marvel’s Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United on Blu-ray Combo Pack, Disney has released a slide show of images to tease the titanic team-up.
In Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United, Iron Man and Hulk team up to save the Earth from its greatest threat yet! Featuring the voices of Adrian Pasdar (Heroes, Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man) as Iron Man and Fred Tatasciore (Marvel’s Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man) as Hulk.
Synopsis: In this action-packed teamup, the Invincible Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk come together to save the Earth from its greatest threat yet. When two HYDRA scientists try to supercharge a Stark Arc Reactor with Hulk’s Gamma Energy, they unleash a being of pure electricity called the Zzzax, and he’s hungry for destruction. Together, Iron Man and Hulk are the only force that stands in the way of the Zzzax’s planetary blackout. But first the superhero duo will have to get through snarling Wendigos, deadly robots and the scaly powerhouse, Abomination. Can two of Marvel’s mightiest heroes find a way to work together without smashing each other before time runs out?
Disney has released the teaser poster and trailer for next year’s revisionist take on Sleeping Beauty’s opponent, Maleficent. While many have been focused on Angelina Jolie’s appearance as the fairy tale villain, other scholars have decided the focus on the witch actually works against the source material. You watch, read, and decide.
Genre: Action-Adventure
Rating: TBD
U.S. Release date: May 30, 2014
Running time:
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville
Director: Robert Stromberg
Producer: Joe Roth
Executive Producers: Angelina Jolie, Don Hahn, Matt Smith, Palak Patel, Sarah Bradshaw
Screenplay by: Linda Woolverton
From Disney comes Maleficent—the untold story of Disney’s most iconic villain from the 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty. A beautiful, pure-hearted young woman, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land’s fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal—an act that begins to turn her pure heart to stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces an epic battle with the invading king’s successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom—and perhaps to Maleficent’s true happiness as well.
Maleficent, the untold story of Disney’s most iconic villain from the 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty, reveals the events that hardened Maleficent’s heart and drove her to curse the baby, Aurora.
OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE:
From Disney comes Maleficent—the untold story of Disney’s most iconic villain from the 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty. A beautiful, pure-hearted young woman, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land’s fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal—an act that begins to turn her pure heart to stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces an epic battle with the invading king’s successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom—and perhaps to Maleficent’s true happiness as well.
The film stars Angelina Jolie as Maleficent, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville.
Maleficent is produced by Joe Roth and directed by Robert Stromberg, with Angelina Jolie, Don Hahn, Matt Smith, Palak Patel and Sarah Bradshaw serving as executive producers. Linda Woolverton wrote the screenplay. Maleficent opens in theaters on May 30, 2014.
Ordinarily, I’m a big fan of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. However, on last Wednesday’s night show, he took almost the whole second segment to castigate deep dish pizza, also known as Chicago-style pizza or just Chicago pizza. The whole flippin’ middle segment.
I’m from Chicago.
I love Chicago pizza.
I’d like to refer Mr. Stewart to Sean Connery’s speech in the Untouchables where he talks about “the Chicago Way.”
I think it’s time to get all Rahm Emanuel on your ass, Mr. Stewart.
The main component of New York pizza is grease. There is more grease on a single slice of New York pizza than a school of teen-agers with severe acne who have just eaten New York pizza. New Yorkers act as if grease was one of the basic food groups. There is enough grease in a NY pizza to fuel Willie Nelson’s biodiesel tour bus twice around the country. There is so much grease on a slice of New York pizza that it will pass through your intestine without stopping. In Chicago, if you poop your pants it’s referred to it as laying a NY pizza.
BOOM!
The proper way to eat a slice of NY pizza is to fold it in half lengthwise. That way you don’t have to look at it. It’s also the only way to keep the cheese and sauce or whatever else they want to throw on it from sliding right off the slice onto your shoes. Hold it folded in one hand and hold your nose with the other and slide it into your mouth. Ah, that’s a good New York pizza!
BOOM!
Every place that sells pizza in New York City has to be named Ray’s – Original Ray’s, Famous Ray’s, Original Famous Ray’s. Famous Original Ray’s. Spam Spam Original Ray Ray’s and Spam, and on and on. It doesn’t make a bit of difference – they all taste the same.
You can make NY pizza at home. It’s easy. Get an unsalted cracker, squirt some ketchup on it, add some toe cheese, warm it under your armpit, and there ya go.
BOOM!
Chicago pizza you sit and eat and it’s a meal. One pizza can feed a family. It’s food. NY pizza is a lubricant.
and
Not content with defaming Chicago pizza, Stewart then went after Chicago hot dogs. Seriously? Those Anthony Weiners they serve from a sidewalk vendor’s cart? First, they dredge the East River, then put the dogs in that for three days, and then add a lukewarm stale bun, something yellow that’s vaguely like mustard, and a healthy dose of salmonella. The only place you should eat hot dogs in NYC is at Nathan’s and then only at the original stand at Coney Island and even that doesn’t quite stand up to a Chicago dog and you know why? Vienna Hot Dogs. The best places in Chicago use Vienna Hot Dogs with natural casings. Nothing else even begins to compare. Certainly not a NY alleged hot dog,
One area I think we can both agree. California so-called pizza is an abomination. Pineapple on a pizza? Really? No red sauce of any kind? Why even bother? So. how about a truce, Jon Stewart? I’ll hold down a California pizza lover and you can kick ‘em.
With the release of Man Of Steel on DVD/BluRay/digital/brain implant this week, we thought it would be time to show you the next step in the merchandising blitz. (No, not the Superman/Batman movie.) Fresh off his gritty reboot, Superman returns to animated form with all-new powers! Come along and watch Man Of Steel: The Animated Series!
Created & Directed by Andy Signore – http://twitter.com/andysignore
Written by Andy Signore and Spencer Gilbert
Characters & Animation by Low Brow Studios
Edited by Dan Murrell
Original Music by Sean Motley
This past week I was honored to be invited back to my alma mater, the Herron School of Art, to give a lecture on my journey “From Starving Artist to Comic Book Publisher.” I spoke for about 45 minutes and afterwards took a few questions, and then sold a few dozen books. All in all, it was a humbling experience, and perhaps the turning of a page in my book of life.
Artistically speaking, my prowess has always been largely introspective. In high school, as much as everyone was self-absorbed, I excelled at it. I took the angst and strife of not getting a date and watching my best friends dry-hump in the hallways and made haute art out of it. Come to think of it, I could have really amped my game up if I’d done a piece commemorating the near-daily visual of dry-humping.
Alas, I chose self-portraiture as my joie de vivre. The idea being that my life – that of a typical, mid-western, suburban, Jewish in name and Bar Mitzvah boy only – could be regurgitated lovingly on board and canvas as such to eventually be called fine art.
Moving on to college, as much as I continued to have aspirations of becoming a comic-book maker, the story of my life continued to be what I presented. In a manner of speaking, my art started to resemble an auto-mockumentary, turning my existence into high entertainment based solely on the fact that I was in fact that awesome. People got a kick out of it, and so did I. It was only after I graduated when the trough of life-events grew emptier, that I finally had the wherewithal to look beyond my very Jewish nose.
Here of course is where you know the-rest-of-the-story. Unshaven Comics is commissioned to make a book by a Chicago publisher. We do it. We learn from it. We decide to break out on our own. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Here’s the thing. In the time between when I formed the company to the time I commemorated it in a lecture in front of a packed auditorium, I got married, bought a house, and became a father. If ever there was a time for me to return to fine art, this would be it, no? Now, I have the glorious content my life was devoid of only years prior! But alas, dear reader… it is not.
Perhaps it’s the wisdom of the years passed that has granted me the maturity enough to know that my legacy will be far more than a worthless collection of portraiture denoted a life lived as many others before and after will lead. Instead, I realize my legacy is very much within the pages and panels of Unshaven’s pure fiction. It’s in my offspring. It’ll be in the heads of those I’ve touched in my time on this mortal coil. John’s piece this past week dealt beautifully with the complex emotions of life and death. I’d be remiss to that much of the reason I chose the arts was to deal with my own near-paralyzing fear of death.
So, it was there in the semi-darkened Basile Auditorium of Eskenazi Hall that I reached a catharsis. So much of my life story has been celebrated – in jest and in reality – such that here, some 10 years after I hung up my woodcut tools for a dayjob, I have in fact lived a third of my life without rampant documentation. I think it was the philosopher Bueller who said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Truer words may never have been spoken, Ferris.
It’s good to know in the next chapter of my harrowing tale, the best is truly yet to come. With my brothers-from-other-mothers, I will be able to continue to tour our country and make new friends and fans. With my ComicMix cohorts, I will glean sage advice in both publishing, and barbeque. With my son and wife, I will find joy in parts of my life relived through new eyes. And with you kiddos? I’ll continue to pretend I’m that damned awesome.
The universe of ABC’s ONCE UPON A TIME is a busy place. With season three in full gear plus the new WONDERLAND spin-off, there is a lot to consider. We talked with creators Ed Kitsis and Adam Horowitz about the perils of spreading too thin, what is in store for each show and if we can look for any crossovers. Plus ONCE’s Jennifer Morrison (Emma) talks about how her character has changed this year. Meanwhile, The Netflix/Marvel projects are moving ahead and The Fantastic Four gets (another) reboot in comics.
