Articles by martha-thomases
Mon Mar 31, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
Demons of Sherwood: The Evil Read
A book only the damned can read!
In today's brand-new episode of Demons of Sherwood, by Robert Tinnell and Bo Hampton, our heroes seek refuge in a monastery where Friar Tuck keeps everyone safe.
He knows every hidey-hole and secret passage in the place, where he guards a most sacred treasure. What happens if he's followed by someone who worships a different god?
Credits:Bo Hampton (Artist), Bo Hampton (Colorist), Bo Hampton (Letterer), Bo Hampton (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor), Robert Tinnell (Writer)
More: Demons of Sherwood
Sat Mar 29, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry, by Martha Thomases
Brilliant Disguise #50
My Wednesday ritual is pretty well set. I get up early enough to do a few hours of work, then go uptown to volunteer. On my way, I stop at Forbidden Planet so I can pick up the new comics. Since I live in Manhattan, I have my choice of several excellent comic shops. Forbidden Planet is near the 6 train, so that’s where I go (also, excellent service, friendly staff, and loads of prose books along with the comics). I can usually read at least one comic while I ride the train, and sometimes, another one in the playground near the hospital. After my stint is done, I ride home, do some more work, and curl up with the rest of my pile.
This week, because it’s spring at last and the sun was out, I decided to take the 6 train all the way down to Bleecker Street instead of taking the F to West Fourth, so I could do the extra walking in my own neighborhood instead of walking through the black pit of hell that is the lower level of the West Fourth Street Station. Everything is blooming early this year – magnolia trees, daffodils, forsythia, the strawberries on my terrace that reliably bear fruit on Arthur’s birthday – so there is color everywhere. Even Frosty Myers’ wall is back where it belongs, in soothing blues. I realize all this mass transit talk is boring to those of you with cars, but it’s all part of the minutiae of New York that makes this kind of urban living its own micro-organism.
Continue reading It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry, by Martha Thomases ›
Fri Mar 28, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
Black Ice: The Return!
The further adventures of a ship in the sky
Black Ice, the action-adventure fantasy by Mike Baron and Nick Runge, returns today with a brand-new chapter.
Neil Kofsky drove his motorbike through an inter-dimensional portal and right onto a battleship that flies through the air. After dueling with a Prince with an attitude, Neil finds himself (and everyone else on board) attacked by an enemy he doesn't know and doesn't understand. And now ....
Credits: Bob Pinaha (Letterer), Matt Webb (Colorist), Mike Baron (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor), Nick Runge (Artist)
More: Black Ice
Thu Mar 27, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
Simone & Ajax: A Beautiful Girl, a Dinosaur, a Duck and a Pope
No, not THAT Pope!
In today's brand-new full-color episode of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck, by Andrew Pepoy, our heroes find themselves in la belle France, hot on the heels of the thief or thieves who stole the legendary Maltese Duck.
What tortures will they face on their quest to find it? And what's with the crazy hats?
Credits:Andrew Pepoy (Artist), Andrew Pepoy (Letterer), Andrew Pepoy (Writer), Jason Millet (Colorist), Mike Gold (Editor-In-Chief)
More: The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck
Wed Mar 26, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
EZ Street: Run For Your Life!
Is he fast enough?
In today's brand-new episode of EZ Street by Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley, the story-within-a-story continues. Can David escape from the men who killed his parents? Is there anyplace safe?
Credits:Mark Wheatley (Artist), Mark Wheatley (Colorist), Mark Wheatley (Letterer), Mark Wheatley (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor), Robert Tinnell (Writer)
More: EZ Street
Tue Mar 25, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
Jon Sable, Freelance: A Nuke as Big as the Ritz
Will New York get bombed for the holidays?
In today's brand-new episode of Jon Sable, Freelance: Ashes of Eden, by Mike Grell, Jon gets to the bottom of the scheme behind the scheme to steal one of the world's biggest diamonds.
Is it a plan to enrich the rich -- or is it something much, much worse?
Credits:Glenn Hauman (Colorist), Glenn Hauman (Assistant Editor), John Workman (Letterer), Mike Gold (Editor), Mike Grell (Artist), Mike Grell (Writer)
More: Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes of Eden
Mon Mar 24, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
Beware the Underworked!
Sometimes, mother doesn't know best...
We have a special treat today from Bo Hampton. It's his classic story, Underworked, about a cartoonist and his quest to find love, labor, and a way out of his mother's basement. If you ever read a comic from the 1990s and wondered how that happened, this story has the answer.
Next week: More Demons of Sherwood
Credits:Bo Hampton (Artist), Bo Hampton (Colorist), Bo Hampton (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor-In-Chief), Tracy Munsey (Letterer)
More: Underworked
Sat Mar 22, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
Cheeseburger in Paradise, by Martha Thomases
Brilliant Disguise #49
It’s Women’s History Month, and time to confess that I’m inordinately interested in the daily lives of the Amazons. Not the historical/mythological Greek Amazons (although I’m somewhat fascinated at the idea of required semi-mastectomies to improve one’s archery prowess), but the DC Comics Amazons who live on Paradise Island, birthplace of Wonder Woman. In my opinion, DC has never handled the Amazons in a believable way. I suspect that’s because Wonder Woman was not consistently written nor drawn by women.
Women, left to their own devices, will develop their own language and customs, much like twins or the Amish. I know. I went to a girls’ boarding school for four years, then lived in a women’s dorm off and on when I went to a co-ed college. With some adjustments for the differences between life in classical Greece and the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I can imagine what Paradise Island would really be like.
In Wonder Woman stories, we often see certain groups of Amazons. The Queen has her court of advisors. The army trains to be ready for the frequent attacks from Man’s World. The priestesses perform the rituals demanded by the gods. Doctors heal. Librarians study. Although we don’t see them, I assume there are also cooks, seamstresses, architects and engineers, cobblers and clowns and musicians.
At my school, we had girls who were interested in all kinds of things. With no boys, there was very little jockeying for male approval (although there was a boys’ school with the same faculty and administration, where girls in the upper forms often had classes). There were athletes and scholars, actresses and musicians, rebels, writers, gossips, manipulators and nerds. But, unlike the Amazons we see on Paradise Island, sometimes these roles could all be found in one girl.
There were groups of girls who were friends, who perhaps shared an interest in riding horses or choir or drugs. However, these were not cliques in the sense we see them in popular movies. It was easy for a nerd to be friends with a jock, to find some common interest they both shared, whether it was Asian history or the Grateful Dead.
Continue reading Cheeseburger in Paradise, by Martha Thomases ›
Thu Mar 20, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
New at ComicMix: Comic Reader Updates and More!
The Times They Are A-Changing
If you're a faithful reader of ComicMix (and we hope you are), you may have noticed that we didn't post the new episode of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck. It's not because anything bad happened to our favorite dinosaur and his cute friend Simone. We're giving Andrew and Jason a bit of a breather.
However, we have just installed some new bells and whistles to the site that will make it more fun for you to use.
You know how they made a hit television show out of the premise that you want to go to a place where everybody knows your name? Well, ComicMix now remembers how you like to read your comics. When you set a preference for single pages or double-page spreads or for a certain degree of magnification, that's how the settings will stay, until you choose to change them again. And you can bookmark individual pages – if you want to check out page 3 of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck, you can now do so directly.
You say you want more? Well, coming up in the near future we’ve got a couple of massive additions to our site – a world of entirely new features – and we’ll be bringing back Munden’s Bar and Black Ice, as well as starting up Giordano/McLaughlin/Holroyd’s White Viper and Trevor Von Eeden’s The Original Johnson. Plus new outings from John Ostrander and Ian Gibson and Joanna Estep… and more. A whole LOT more.
Stay tuned.
Wed Mar 19, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
EZ Street: The Start of David's Night
Scott and Danny get a new idea
In today's brand-new episode of EZ Street, by Mark Wheatley and Robert Tinnell, Scott and Danny meet in a diner in the middle of the night. What kind of story could be so important? It's the beginning of the story that could make their careers.
Credits: Mark Wheatley (Artist), Mark Wheatley (Colorist), Mark Wheatley (Letterer), Mark Wheatley (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor), Robert Tinnell (Writer)
More: EZ Street
Tue Mar 18, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
Jon Sable, Freelance: Stealing Junk
Diamonds, sawdust and wheelbarrows ...
In today's brand-new episode of Mike Grell's Jon Sable, Freelance: Ashes of Eden, Maggie and Jon don't fight. Instead, they figure out why the McGuffin Diamond is so important, and why Jon was hired to protect it.
Credits: Glenn Hauman (Colorist), Glenn Hauman (Assistant Editor), John Workman (Letterer), Mike Gold (Editor), Mike Grell (Artist), Mike Grell (Writer), Shannon Weaver (Colorist)
More: Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes of Eden
Mon Mar 17, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
Demons of Sherwood: Zombie Panic!
When body parts attack...
In today's brand-new episode of Demons of Sherwood by Robert Tinnell and Bo Hampton, there's no rest for the wicked. Instead, they rise from their graves and come after our heroes. How do you outrun a set of teeth?
Credits: Bo Hampton (Artist), Bo Hampton (Colorist), Bo Hampton (Letterer), Bo Hampton (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor), Robert Tinnell (Writer)
More: Demons of Sherwood
Sat Mar 15, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
Money changes everything, by Martha Thomases
Brilliant Disguise #45
So, what did your governor do this week?
Mine, Eliot Spitzer, got caught spending thousands of dollars to have sex with women to whom he was not married. In particular, he paid over $4000 an hour for one woman named “Kristen,” who was described as being five feet, five inches tall, brunette, and 105 pounds, a size two. His wife, seen standing stoically next to him at his press conference, is also a petite, attractive woman (although the news stories have not included her height nor her weight).
There have been a lot of sex scandals in politics lately. The scenario is predictable and satisfying: a man insists that American society is based on the sanctity of the family, and all threats (usually meaning allowing gays to marry and women to control their own bodies) must be overcome. Then he gets caught with a hooker while wearing diapers, or with an under-age boy, or moving his feet to some crazy rhythm in a men’s room. There’s a defiant and/or repentant press conference, with the previously mentioned stoic wife, and he slinks away, hoping never to be noticed again.
Our governor was not quite to that mold. Like McGreevy from neighboring New Jersey, he was not a “family values” scold. No, Spitzer was a crusader, smiting the greedy criminals who threatened the good people of Gotham, I mean, New York State. As Attorney General, he went after white-collar criminals with the same zeal as a superhero. Among his targets were escort services, such as the one he used to arrange for his liaison with “Kristen.” That’s a long way to go to get the satisfaction from his hypocrisy, but we’ll take what we can get.
Continue reading Money changes everything, by Martha Thomases ›
Fri Mar 14, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
GrimJack: Extreme Conjunction Junction
Where the saints go marching in...
In today's brand-new episode of GrimJack: The Manx Cat, by John Ostrander and Timothy Truman, it's all-out war!
Check out the fight between the Battle Cherubs and the Imps from Hell!
Credits: John Ostrander (Writer), John Workman (Letterer), Lovern Kindierski (Colorist), Mike Gold (Editor), Timothy Truman (Artist)
More: GrimJack: The Manx Cat
Thu Mar 13, 2008 — by Martha Thomases
The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: Bizarre Bazaar
Simone & Ajax run amok!
In today's brand-new full-color episode of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck, by Andrew Pepoy, our heroes run through the streets of Casablanca, in search of the elusive treasure.
Do you think anyone will notice Simone in the belly-dancing outfit? And what's that smell?
Credits: Andrew Pepoy (Artist), Andrew Pepoy (Letterer), Andrew Pepoy (Writer), Jason Millet (Colorist), Mike Gold (Editor-In-Chief)
More: The Adventures of Simone & Ajax: The Case of the Maltese Duck
