Articles by mike-gold
Wed Mar 12, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Review: Jughead's Double Digest #138
They call him Jughead!
So there I was, at Midtown Comics, one of
This is the issue before the beginning of their latest “new-look” story, this time drawn by my pals Joe Staton and Al Milgrom, so I gave it a second glance. Above the logo, in type too small to be visible in the reproduction I cribbed from Archie’s website, is the phrase “Collectors (sic) Issue Featuring Jughead #1, 1949.” The cover art promised a story where the 2008 Jughead meets up with his 1949 counterpart. The one who only owned one shirt.
Unless you’ve been scouring the ComicMix comments sections lately, it is possible you are unaware that the Archie line is one of the best-selling newsstand comics ventures of our time. In fact, since their digests are available at most supermarket checkouts, they provide an unparalleled portal into the world of comics. Because their content appeals to readers of all sexes and age groups, they appeal to a group Marvel and DC barely acknowledge: the younger reader.
I should point out that Archie is also the last of the publishing houses still controlled by the family of its original owners. That comes across quite clearly in their editorial content, which is quite respectful of its roots.
Wed Mar 12, 2008 — by Mike Gold
DC Colorist Jerry Serpe, R.I.P.
Noted DC Colorist For 40 Years
One of DC Comics’ preeminent colorists, Jerry Serpe, passed away Monday. A colorist and color separator since the end of World War II, Jerry had primary responsibility for overseeing the interior color for DC’s entire line during the 1950s and 1960s. He later went freelance, continuing to color virtually every character and every feature DC published for more than 30 years.
Mon Mar 10, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Hope versus Fear, by Mike Gold
Whizzy's Wazoo #57
You don’t have to have read superhero comics for any great length of time before you get the message: perseverance plus righteousness will defeat the enemy every time. Despite the “maturation” of commercial comic books, this essential message remains at the core of the superhero concept.Mon Mar 3, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Son Of Filling The Big Shoes, by Mike Gold
Whizzy's Wazoo #56
Remember my column last week ? I’m sure you committed every hallowed word to memory. Well, this is a sequel. Fittingly, it’s about Hollywood.
I’m staring at this massive schedule of movies of interest to your average ComicMixer that are due to be released in the next 12 months or so: Iron Man 1, Indiana Jones 4, Incredible Hulk 2-but-1, Get Smart 1, Hellboy 2, The Dark Knight 6-but-2, X-Files 2, The Mummy 3, James Bond 22, Harry Potter 6, The Day The Earth Stood Still 1-but-2, Star Trek 74, Will Eisner’s The Spirit 1, and Green Hornet 1 (serials don’t count). I’m looking forward to about half of them, which is a pretty good average for me. But there’s one that I’m looking to with trepidation.
No, it’s not The Day The Earth Stood Still, the original of which is the Citizen Kane of science-fiction movies. Let them take a shot; I wish ‘em luck. Nor is it Star Trek 74: The Reboot-To-The-Rear. I’d scoff at this attempt but, frankly, after the majority of Trek movies what the hell, maybe it’ll work. It did for James Bond in Casino Royale 3. Nope, I’m trepidatious about Will Eisner’s The Spirit. Make that Frank Miller’s Will Eisner’s The Spirit.
There’s absolutely no slight here against Frank. Of all the folks in comics, he has been one of the most publicly and most aggressively pro-creator rights activists around. His passionate arguments about the Comics Code and about the way Marvel treated Jack Kirby still ring loudly in my inner-ear. In fact, I’m glad to see The Spirit in the hands of a person who knows how to make comics work yet also has a solid background in movies.
No, I’m afraid of Hollywood.
Continue reading Son Of Filling The Big Shoes, by Mike Gold ›
Tue Feb 26, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Review: Manga Sutra Volume One - Flirtation
Abstinence makes the heart go Manga
It used to be, if you wanted to reach for the comic art form for your sex education you had to send a couple bucks to those want ads in the back of the cheesy magazines for “Comics – the Kind Men Like!” That stuff was a bit distorted; well, in the case of the ones that featured Popeye, I’d have to say they were quite a bit distorted.
is a sweet and sensitive series that focuses on the psychological aspects of sex as much as – actually, more than – the mechanics. The story is about a young couple, Makoto and Yura, who met through an arranged “marriage meeting.” This is sort of a counseled dating service, but one where the ultimate intent of marriage is upfront. The two 25 year olds dated, liked each other, got married, and only then discovered they were both virgins with a lot of understandable insecurities and a lack of any clue.Continue reading Review: Manga Sutra Volume One - Flirtation ›
Mon Feb 25, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Filling The Big Shoes, by Mike Gold
Whizzy's Wazoo #55
After much discussion with friends and the unwashed and bewildered, today I have decided to weigh in (again) on one of the many ongoing and irresolvable debates that have haunted the hallowed halls of comics academia since time immemorial. The question: when the instigator of a series retires from his or her creation, should the series be retired as well?Tue Feb 19, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Government Recalls Spider-Man Cups
You can stare, but don't sip
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a recall of 6,600 Spider-Man water bottles sold exclusively at Sears last summer. These bottles carry a sufficient risk of choking, as the screws under the lid can come loose and fall into the cup.
Even though these items haven't been sold for some time, the news is significant as many were purchased by and for fans old and young. Quite frankly, they look sort of cool. So if you've got 'em, you might want to take them out of service and put them on a shelf beyond the reach of small children who are not endowed with the powers and proportionate strength of a spider.
More info here.
Tue Feb 19, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Conan on Conan Action on TV!
GrimJack's Timothy Truman's latest CD cover, that is
Jim Lauderdale and The Dream Players were on Conan O'Brien's show last night, promoting and playing from their new CD, Honey Songs, which hits the stores today. The jacket art was drawn by GrimJack artist Timothy Truman; Timothy also writes Conan for Dark Horse. He's also been known to draw everybody's favorite barbarian from time to time as well.
Yep. That means that Conan was holding up Conan's art, but not Conan art. Nor GrimJack art, sadly, but we were thrilled to see Tim's stuff on network teevee! Nice goin', bro!
Mon Feb 18, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Rock and Roll and Comic Books and Our Future, by Mike Gold
Whizzy's Wazoo #54
There’s a website called Electronista that blames the precipitous drop in music sales on iTunes and the iPod, quoting NBC News’ Peter Alexander as saying “with 120 million iPods sold since 2001, digital downloads of individual songs are through the roof, soaring 500% in the last three years. In that same period, CD’s sales of declined dramatically, as listeners prefer hits over to entire albums.”
Continue reading Rock and Roll and Comic Books and Our Future, by Mike Gold ›
Sun Feb 17, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Format Wars: We Have A Winner
You can see the glitter from Spidey's web-strings!
If you have a HD-TV and you bought a Blu-Ray DVD player to watch Spider-Man 3, 300 or X-Men The Last Stand in all their high-definition glory, congratulations. You win. It looks like Toshiba is about to throw in the towel on their HD-DVD format.
Left at the alter by such outlets as Netflix, Best Buy and Wal-Mart and supported by an ever-shrinking number of studio releases, Toshiba tried slashing the price of their players and their discs – to no avail. Now Microsoft is talking about making its next X-Box compatible with Blu-Ray, a format also supported by a great many computer companies; Toast and other DVD authoring software also burn to Blu-Ray discs.
Sony had hoped for an immediate win with its Blu-Ray, but its delays in marketing the Playstation 3 game machine and software put them in second position. As movies became available and people could see the difference between the two formats, consumers voted with their credit cards.
So when the Iron Man movie comes out on DVD this fall, you won't have to toss the dice. You'll be able to see each and every hair in Tony Stark's goatee with alarming clarity.
Tue Feb 12, 2008 — by Mike Gold
ComicMix History Lesson: Steve Ditko's Revenge
Beware the artist!
The cover Mike Raub used to illustrate his ComicMix Radio piece earlier today reminded me of another cover of somewhat similar design ... and quiet controversy. So it's time for another ComicMix History Lesson!
Once upon a time DC Comics had this idea of resurrecting their Showcase try-out series, but they made a couple significant changes. Instead of doing three-issue try-out runs, they did a series of one-shots. And, unlike Showcase's The Flash, Lois Lane, Green Lantern, The Atom (et al) runs, by and large these one-shots sucked.
They named the series 1st Issue Special because the phrase "1st issue" sold comics to collectors, and then they numbered each issue sequentially, proving their desire to sell comics in Canada outweighed their faith in collectors (don't ask – or, better still, if you want to know, ask and I'll respond in comments).
One of the better issues resurrected Steve Ditko's Beware The Creeper, dropping the "Beware" part. Editorial director Carmine Infantino rejected Steve's cover concept and drew up one of his own. 
Evidently, Steve didn't care for it, but that was how the gig worked. So he drew it as designed: Firefly battling The Creeper in the sky, with a down-shot point-of-view.
As you can see, both characters are pummeling each other as they are falling to the ground. In the background is a street scene, with tiny little cars. And across from one of those tiny little cars, there's a tiny little fire hydrant. And next to the fire hydrant, there's a tiny little dog. And next to the tiny little dog who is next to the tiny little fire hydrant, there's a tiny little puddle.
That last part reflects what Ditko thought of Infantino's cover design.
Mon Feb 11, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Today, We Are One, by Mike Gold
Whizzy's Wazoo #53!
Well, it says here that this is Whizzy’s Wazoo #53. That means today ComicMix starts our second year.
Wow.
This is a good time to look back at what we’ve done, what we’re trying to do, and how we’ve made the world a better place. Whereas that last point is undoubtedly true, I’d rather look forward. Not a whole year forward; that seems like bad luck. Just the next few months.
ComicMix is going to increase our number of pages by tens of thousands. No kidding. We’re almost ready to do that; our tech team has been working furiously to do the tech voodoo that they do so swell. We’ve already got enough broadband to bury Atlantis. You’ll be seeing a lot more of… well, everything, including some of the greatest names old and new in comics and related media.
And speaking of comics…
Sat Feb 9, 2008 — by Mike Gold
'Battlestar Galactica' Books Its Final Trip
Robot Chicken, The Soup part of the plan
The Sci-Fi network announced the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica will begin on Friday, April 4th at 10 PM Eastern and Pacific, preceded, as usual, by a couple of half hour specials to remind viewers of what's been going on.
Oddly enough, these specials will feature the likes of Robot Chicken's Seth Green and The Soup's Joel McHale.
This new incarnation of Galactica, which rose phoenix-like out of the cold and deservedly piss-on ashes of the Lorne Greene series affectionately known to Baby Boomers as Battlestar Ponderosa, has won all kinds of awards, including an Emmy and a Peabody. Earlier this winter, Razor, an all-new direct-to-DVD Battlestar movie, hit the shelves. It was a rare thing: a continuity implant that actually worked.
No word on if the Galacticans actually discover Earth and, if so, if they'll be treated as illegal immigrants.
Sat Feb 9, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Prince Valiant, Gary Gianni and The Page
The big book cometh!
Time was when the whole family would gather in the living room once a week to fight over the Sunday newspaper. People would settle for their second favorite sections, but only one could start with the most popular: the Sunday funnies. Back in those days, there were no more than three strips to a page -- often two, and sometimes only one. Principle among these full-page delights was Hal Foster's Prince Valiant.
Seventy years later Val is still with us, often criminally reduced to one-fifth of a page. Prince Valiant is in the hands of only its third artist, a worthy successor to Foster and John Cullen Murphy named Gary Gianni.
Known to comics fans for his work on such iconic characters as The Shadow, Tarzan and Conan, Gianni illustrates Mark Schultz's scripts – Schultz himself is no slouch as an artist. All that is preamble.
This June, Flesk Publications is releasing Gary Gianni: The Prince Valiant Page, a 112 page hardcover study of Gianni's work on the feature, lavishly illustrated with black and white art shot from the originals as well as three color gatefolds. The hardcover edition is limited to 1,000 copies; there's also a ultra-cool deluxe hardcover that features one of Gianni's pencil preliminaries – in other words, original art. A trade a paperback edition will be released eventually. Prices on all this have yet to be announced.
Oh, yeah. The introduction was written by Mike Mignola. Turns out Gary did some Hellboy, too!
Sat Feb 9, 2008 — by Mike Gold
Deal Reached In Writer's Strike
Now it's up to a vote
According to a Reuters dispatch, the Writer's Guild of America has reached a tentative deal with the studios after a three-month walk-out that brought most domestic television and movie production to a halt.
The deal isn't perfect, union reps stated, but it's strong enough for them to recommend to their membership. Meetings will be held later today on both coasts to explain the terms and to vote on ratification.
The heart of the dispute involved the writer's share of online revenues, which for which they previously did not receive penny one, and their diminutive payments for DVD sales. Whereas prognosticators haven't had a great track record lately, it is expected this deal will be approved.
This means the Justice League movie might get rescued – maybe – and the Academy Awards will go on as scheduled later this month. And that means the world will not end after all.
