Articles by glenn-hauman
Tue Feb 9, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
'Terminator' rights sold at auction
From Nikki Finke (of course): It was not made clear how this affects the comic rights.
Fri Feb 5, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
'Merlin' appears on SyFy in April
Syfy picked up the basic cable rights for all 26 episodes of the series Merlin, including the US TV premiere of season two which has never before been seen in America. Syfy will premiere the series this April.
The series featured the adventures of young Merlin and Arthur, who is being groomed by his father Uther Pendragon to one day become king of England. Season one aired on NBC last summer and seasons one and two aired on BBC One in the UK during 2008-09. BBC is moving forward with a third season, slated to air in September.
Fri Feb 5, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
'Human Target' tv show finally references the comics-- and not in a way you'd expect
Okay, so Christopher Chance is sent to a monastery to find the person he's supposed to protect. And, well, you'll see...
And yes, of course he knows all of this, he's Jimmy Olsen.
Thu Feb 4, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Darth Vader and Snoop Dogg selling sneakers together in Times Square
Lily Tomlin was right. No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up.
Yes, it's been one of those days. Why do you ask?
Thu Feb 4, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
More on the 'iPad: will it save the world... or destroy it?' debates
I always notice these things when I'm on five different deadlines and really shouldn't be distracted, but when Dirk Deppey says I've missed the point entirely, as he does here, replying to my comments here-- well, it catches my attention.
Dirk says: It [the iPad] has to be cheap enough to appeal to the general public, building a large enough pool of potential customers to once again make selling comics to a mass audience feasible — otherwise you’re just trading one limited, stagnant marketplace for another, selling primarily to a fraction of the same customer base that you already had. Which is what I think will happen with the iPad as presently designed and marketed, for reasons already outlined. ... Here’s the thing about Google’s strategy: Because it’s both open source and backed by one of the largest tech corporations on Earth, they can make a strong appeal to manufacturers, not only for their operating system’s lack of licensing costs but also because it comes with an already-functioning apps store that sells across multiple hardware platforms, guaranteeing (to the extent that anyone can) a thriving online marketplace for one’s customers. This in turn offers creators and publishers a potential for mass-market ubiquity that Apple will never, ever be able to match.
In order:
The iPhone came out less than three years ago and Apple has sold 33.75 million iPhones sold by the end of 4Q09. That's a mass market platform, certainly a larger number than the number of people walking in to comics stores. For a point of comparison, Time Warner Cable has less than 25 million cable subscribers.
An even bigger sales platform is the iTunes Store, which has been the number one music vendor in the US for almost two years straight, which has sold over 9 billion songs, over 1 billion HD TV episodes, and downloaded over 2 billion apps, while traditional stores like Sam Goody and Tower Records have pretty much gone bye-bye. I wouldn't exactly call that a "limited marketplace".
We already have reports that iPhone editions of some comics from major publishers have been outselling print editions of the books, and that's on a platform that's not optimal for reading comics.
If there's a problem with the platform, it's the problem of getting lost amidst the huge amounts of stuff other people are putting out.
Dirk, if you're willing to bet against Apple, which is also "one of the largest tech companies on Earth", more power to you-- I remember the Newton too. But don't be surprised if these new distribution methods and platforms turn your local comic shop into the 21st century equivalent of Record World.*
*For the youngsters: once upon a time, CDs (remember them?) used to be as big as your head, and they would have so much music on them that they turned black. And when you turned them over, there was more music on the other side!
Thu Feb 4, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
'Watchmen 2: The Smell Of Fear' (and other potential titles)
All right, let's get them all out of the way...
- ALAN AND DAVE'S BOGUS JOURNEY
- WATCHMEN 2: THE QUICKENING
- BLUE HARVEST
- WATCHMEN: THE SALLY JUPITER CHRONICLES
- BRIDE OF NITE-OWL
- WATCHMEN 2: THE LEGEND OF CURLY'S GOLD
- COMEDIAN'S LITTLE DIVIDEND
- WATCHMEN 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
- ERNEST SAVES WATCHMEN
- WATCHMEN 2: THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES
- FROM RORSCHACH WITH LOVE
- THE WATCHMEN ALWAYS RING TWICE
- I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU WATCHED LAST SUMMER
- WATCHMEN 2: WATCH HARDER
- NIGHT OWL AND SILK SPECTRE ESCAPE GUANTANAMO BAY
- WATCHMEN 2: BIGGER, BLUER, AND STILL UNCUT
- OZYMANDIAS AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
- WATCHMEN VS. GHIDRA
- SON OF WATCHMEN
- THE CHARLTON MENACE
- WATCHMEN 2: THE AZURE ARMY
- THE ROAD TO KARNAK
- WATCHMEN 28 WEEKS LATER
- THE WATCHMEN STRIKE BACK
- WATCHMEN 2: THE SECRET OF THE OZY
- A VERY WATCHMEN CHRISTMAS
- WATCHMEN, TOO!
- THE WATCHMEN SUPREMACY
- TO DAN DREIBERG, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, SALLY JUPITER
- DIAL W FOR WATCHMEN
- And finally, WATCHMEN: WE DID BLUE CGI PEOPLE FIRST, WHERE'S OUR OSCAR NOMINATION?
In case you haven't heard, Rich Johnston is talking about the disturbing possibility that there will be Watchmen spinoffs now that Paul Levitz is gone. And in case you want to know how bad this could get, let's give you a reminder:
Special thanks to Marc Alan Fishman for the art and @miss_sarah_s for extra titles. And if we missed any titles, please add them in the comments.
Wed Feb 3, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
'The Beat' Goes On, 'The Beat' Goes On
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain...La de da de de, la de da de da...
History has turned the page, uh huh-- Heidi Macdonald has officially launched The Beat on its own site. She's footloose and fancy free. Go over and say hi, and tell her we sent you.
Time to update my RSS feeds...
Mon Feb 1, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Weekend Window-Closing Wrapup, February 1, 2010
Hoo-boy, I've let a lot of windows pile up. Let me close a bunch of them.
- Tom Brevoort: Marvel Vice Prez: Congrats to Tom. A better fit cannot be imagined.
- Apple wants a tablet in every home, a use for everyone
- The best comics of the ’00s | Best Of The Decade | Comics Panel | The A.V. Club
- Poe Toaster tribute is 'nevermore'
- Charity Artwork Donated for an Upcoming Auction: Some great stuff here, including this Marvel Villains piece by Evan Dorkin.
- French retailers revolt against e-book hegemony: Oh, this will go well.
- HASBRO'S NEW NETWORK MEANS NEW TRANSFORMERS SERIES
- Graphic Novels Challenge 2010
- James Bond At 5-Years-Old [Pic] | I Am Bored
- Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience on the Current Comic Book Market
- ICv2 - 'Spidey Musical' Back on Track
- ICv2 - Every Book—10,000 Copies Stolen Uh, no. I call shenanigans. The better number is the one further down, that suggests that 10% of any book's print run is pirated. And I'd argue that at towards the end of the long tail, a number aren't even pirated at all because there's just not enough people buying them in the first place.
- Jonah Hex Headed For Reshoots
- Why the Na'vi Are Making Me Blue: China Miéville has his doubts.
- Russian Moviegoers Tell Cameron and Avatar to Hold on There Comrade...We've Already Seen Pandora Harlan Ellison could not be reached for comment.
Sat Jan 30, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
How Amazon could force comics to go digital
Remember about a month back, we posted an article about Fox Networks and Time Warner Cable playing hardball over being carried?
Well, as of Friday books from Macmillan, including all sub-imprints like Tor books and St. Martin's Press, have vanished from Amazon.com. According to the New York Times, the disappearance is the result of a disagreement between Amazon.com and book publishers that has been brewing for the last year. Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of electronic books from $9.99 to around $15. Amazon is expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books.
Now with this as a precedent, let's take it to the next level:
"Hello, DC Comics? Jeff Bezos here. Hey, how come we don't have Batman: Black & White available for the Kindle yet?"
"Oh really? Do you know how many thousands of copies of Watchmen we sold for you last year? How many Batman and Sandman graphic novels? Don't even get me started on Smallville DVD sets."
"Let me spell it out for you. If we don't start getting files for the Kindle by the end of this month, we're going to stop selling the print editions of your books."
Think it can't happen? Are you sure?
Fri Jan 29, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
The iPad costs too much? Compared to what?
One of the ongoing shibboleths coming out about the iPad, with prominent examples coming from Dirk Deppey, is that it won't change the game for comics because the iPad costs too much.
To which we have to ask: compared to what?
Let's take a simple example: Marvel's Siege crossover event. If you wanted the entire thing and were to pay full retail for the comics, at $2.99 an issue you're going to spend $100 or so on the full thing.
Now's let's assume the digital version of a series at 99 cents an issue. You end up with a savings of $60 over the life of the crossover series.
Or put it this way: If you normally buy an average of $30 of comics a week at a store, and you replace half of them with digital versions of the same books that cost 25% of their paper counterparts, you're going to save over $560 in a year. That's the price of a low-end iPad, plus tax and shipping.
I know a lot of people who would take that deal.
Fri Jan 29, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise
Stormtroopers in Seoul with soul K-Pop:
Thu Jan 28, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Newsarama has a virus AGAIN?
Promoted from comments here:
I've gotten the same virus TWICE from The Rama in the past two days...I go to the site and my OneCare tells me that the software n.exe is trying to access the net and I tell it no and then my firewall, auto-updates, and virus protection fail, won't re-open and pop-ups start...I had to do a system restore. Done with the site over the computer. Accessed it on my phone and got a message saying there was a problem with it's security certif. Guess I'm onto a new Comics site! :(
Guys?
Thu Jan 28, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Irredeemable #10: Boy, Mark Waid must've hated 'Action Comics' #442
Warning: We're discussing Irredeemable #10, out in stores this week, and we're probably going to spoil a minor plot point. You might want to read it first before you go any further.
Based on part of Irredeemable #10, I can tell that Mark Waid read Action Comics #442 at a very impressionable age-- specifically "The Midnight Murder Show" written by Cary Bates, with art by Curt Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger.
And he was struck by the sheer implausibilty of it all. And re-reading it, I can't blame him.
Let me recap the plot a bit: Late night talk show host Johnny Nevada, host of GBS's "The Midnight Show" has been kidnapped by the psychotic and trigger-happy "Touch" McCoy and his henchman, Louie, because all criminal henchmen in Superman stories are named Louie.
Nevada is being held for ransom of ten million dollars. (In 1974, that was enough to stun a TV network-- in 2004, ABC spent more than that on the pilot of Lost, and today, there are pilots rumored to cost fifty million dollars. My, how times change.)
To catch the kidnapper, Superman hatches a plan to goad the kidnapper into shooting, which he will be able to hear with his super-hearing. So Superman goes on The Midnight Show and goads Touch into shooting his .45 at Carso-- er, Nevada, which Superman will hear fire from across the city, and can get there before the bullet travels the distance to hit Nevada.
All well and good, except that Superman has forgotten that a .45 caliber bullet travels at 800 feet per second. In a 20 foot room, it will take 1/40th of a second.
In that time, the sound of the gunshot will only travel 28 feet. It's not going to matter if he's faster than a speeding bullet if he can't hear it before it hits the target.
We won't even get into the argument of how Superman knew how far away the shot was or the exact direction to fly off in-- suffice it to say that it's a completely implausible story.
I mean, really-- TV networks caring about the hosts of their late-night talk shows?
Continue reading Irredeemable #10: Boy, Mark Waid must've hated 'Action Comics' #442 ›
Mon Jan 25, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Interview: 'Farscape' and 'Scorpius' writers David Alan Mack and Keith R.A. DeCandido
BOOM! Studios announced today Farscape: Scorpius, an ongoing series starting in April. Written by series creator Rockne S. O'Bannon and David Alan Mack (the Star Trek novelist, not the artist on Kabuki, just to get it out of the way early) it finds everyone’s favorite black leather clad villain deposed from his throne on Hyneria and making a bold new discovery that could put him back on top of the Uncharted Territories.
We took some time to chat with Dave (with Keith R. A. DeCandido, the scripter for the Farscape ongoing series, throwing in little bot mots because as readers of ComicMix know, he just shows up everywhere) and asked him about the new series, and what it's like to write a story from the antagonist's point of view.
ComicMix: There are precious few comics that have been focused on the bad guy in the story... but is Scorpius a bad guy?
David Alan Mack: He certainly doesn't see himself that way. From his point of view, he's probably the only rational actor in a universe populated by fools and madmen. Of course, Scorpius is not going to judge his own actions using our brand of moral compass. He is, in many respects, an amoral individual.
In my opinion, Scorpius is willing to espouse a sense of duty and offer his loyalty to whomever appears to be on his side, and in the moment when he makes such a declaration, it's possible he even means it. But if he needs to betray his allies to accomplish what he thinks is the most desirable outcome for himself, he won't hesitate to put knives in their backs and twist the blades.
Keith R.A. DeCandido: Oh, he's definitely a bad guy—at least by the standards of the people reading the comic book (and who watched the show). When we first met him at the end of the first season, he tortured Crais for no good reason, just to be absolutely sure about something. Scorpius admitted up front that the accusation Crichton had made simply had to be false, but Scorpius was still willing to torture a Peacekeeper captain just to be 100% sure.
ComicMix: And yet he does it in such a mannered and genteel style. Very precise. Play out a little bit of the Scorpius series for us. Where are we starting from?
DAM: We catch up to Scorpius while he's in self-imposed exile. He's been kicked off Hyneria by the triumphantly returned monarch Dominar Rygel XVI. Left with nowhere to go, Scorpius is on what one might consider a contemplative retreat.
Then, as Bogart said in Casablanca, "destiny takes a hand." Scorpius finds himself in the right place at the right time, and he makes the most of a new opportunity.
ComicMix: So this is a decent place for new readers to jump in and get up to speed?
DAM: Absolutely. The first four-issue arc of Scorpius is designed to introduce the character to new readers by interspersing flashbacks from his past, while detailing the new political situation brewing in the Farscape universe, especially in the Uncharted Territories.
