Monthly Archive: July 2007

TV REVIEW: Jekyll

bbcjekyll-9178210What if the story of Jekyll and Hyde were based on a real person, a true case? And what if there were someone alive in the present day that had the same horrible curse?

This is the premise of the new BBC mini-series Jekyll, premiering this Saturday at 8 PM on BBC America. The series was envisioned by producer Jeffrey Taylor and Steven Moffat, creator of the British comedy Coupling and writer of several episodes of the new Doctor Who series (such as “[[[The Girl In The Fireplace]]]” and “[[[The Empty Child]]]”). Steven Moffat handles the writing for all episodes.

The six episode mini-series features Doctor Tom Jackman, a man who doesn’t know who his parents were, having been found as an abandoned baby in a railway station. For the past several months, Dr. Jackman has been having black-outs during which another force is inexplicably inhabiting his body. Along with this darker personality that seems to lack any morals, there is a physical change. Jackman’s alter ego is actually younger, thinner, two inches taller, and has borderline superhuman strength and speed. Jackman soon finds out that the famous story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was based on a real person who lived and died in the 19th century. Now Jackman struggles to keep his life in control and his family safe, a family he prays that his own “Mr. Hyde” will never find out about lest he decide to attack them.

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Hot Comics Linkage

  • News
  • July 31, 2007

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Last thoughts on the San Diego Comic-Con:

Adventures in SciFi Publishing has some Comic-Con pictures.

Fantasy Book Critic has a wrap-up of Comic-Con, with some pictures and thoughts, and yet more links.

The Bat Segundo show flutters back for a second podcast about this year’s Alternative Press Expo.

Ned Beauman is now blogging about comics for the Guardian, but he thinks it’s hard out there for a non-misogynist.

Sequential Tart reviews a couple of Minxes.

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“Happy Birthday, Dear Shadow!”

  • Uncategorized
  • July 31, 2007

shadownv08-7500033On this day in 1930 The Shadow first aired on the radio, as the announcer of Detective Stories, and the announcer proved to be more popular than the show, leading to the creation of the character we know and love. The show became famous for its trademark opening line: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows…" and drew a listening audience of about 15 million a week during its peak. At least six different actors played the Shadow during the show’s 25 years. Orson Welles played the Shadow (and was the first to voice Lamont Cranston) from 1937 to 1938 for a whopping $185 a week.

The classic Shadow pulps are back, as we’ve mentioned several times here at ComicMix.

Howard Cruse launches local rag

  • Uncategorized
  • July 31, 2007

perp1-inddFamous underground cartoonist (and friend of ComicMix) Howard Cruse will launch his newest project, The North County Perp, a new magazine covering the art scene in his hometown, on Wednesday, August 1.  If you’re in the neighborhood, there’s a party at the MCLA Gallery 51 (51 Main Street) from 6 PM to 8 PM.

The Perp is 24 pages of "humorous writing, home-grown cartoons, and essays on topics too off the beaten path to claim space in our local dailies and weeklies," Cruse says.  

Cruse shares his personal account of the Perp’s origins in a recent entry of his blog: http://www.howardcruse.com/loosecruse/

 

Additional information may be found at the Perp’s own web site: http://www.northcountyperp.com

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Dark Tower’s Marvel Future?

The Big ComicMix Broadcast is back home and wait until you hear about the new comics and DVDs we had waiting for us! Plus, we talk to one of the creators of Dark Tower on the future of the Marvel series, DC explains why they feel weekly comics are cool and the Watchmen director spills how is going to make a movie that even Alan Moore might like! We’ve got the news on the relaunch of Reboot, ABC’s PrimeTime plans and a trip back to an artist whose one big hit came just a year after a similar trip to the top from her husband!

You’ll miss ALL of this unless you Press The Button!

Wolfman, Niles, Mariotte Snag Scribes

  • News
  • July 31, 2007

On Sunday at San Diego Comic-Con, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers held a mid-afternoon program where their first Scribe Awards were handed out.

Member Andy Mangels played host to a small but enthusiastic crowd as they watched winners in attendance collect their prizes.  The association was formed so the best-selling category of fiction could be acknowledged as a category of its own, joining groups for authors of Thrillers, Mysteries, Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction.

There were six categories and Jeff Mariotte snagged two of them in a bit of a surprise given the volume of works submitted.

The winners:

Speculative Fiction, Best Novel Adapted: Superman Returns by Marv Wolfman

Speculative Fiction, Best Novel Original: 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead by Stephen Niles and Jeff Mariotte

General Fiction, Best Novel Adapted: Snakes on a Plane by Christa Faust

Best Novel Original: Las Vegas: High Stakes by Jeff Mariotte

Young Adult All Genres, Best Novel: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Portal Through Time by Alice Henderson

Grandmaster, honoring career achievement in the field: Donald Bain.

Bain was on hand to accept the award in person, thrilled tghat his accomplishments, incouding over 80 novels, were recognized by peers. The IAMTW (www.iamtw.org) is accepting nominations for works in published 2007 with the awards scheduled for next year’s convention.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Spent

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Joe Matt is a lazy, pornography-obsessed cartoonist whose main (or possibly only) subject is his own miserable life. If you’ve heard of Matt’s work before, you’re probably wondering why I’m restating the obvious. If you’ve never heard of Matt before, you’re probably wondering how much of a career one can get out of that – well, it’s not a deep well, but he’s been at it for nearly twenty years.

Spent collects four issues of Matt’s comic Peepshow; it’s essentially a sequel to his first full-length graphic novel, The Poor Bastard. Poor Bastard was mostly about his rocky relationship with his girlfriend Trish in the early ‘90s, and Spent’s four issues take place in 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2002, respectively. (And the really sad and pathetic thing is that Matt’s depicted life didn’t change in the slightest between ’94 and ’02; these issues read almost as if they’re four successive days.) Matt is seen either in company with his two cartoonist friends, Seth and Chester Brown, or (generally alone) in his room, obsessing about himself and talking to the reader.

Now, what I say from here on applies to the “Joe Matt” who is the main character of Spent; it may or may not precisely describe the real-world Joe Matt, though, to all appearances, he does document his life quite honestly. (And a tip of the hat to my fellow comics reviewer Jeff VanderMeer, with whom I spent several enjoyable months last year debating such things as how much of the “Bret Easton Ellis” in Lunar Park can be mapped onto the man of the same name who wrote that novel.) (more…)

LA Times blogger gets beaten at SDCC

  • Uncategorized
  • July 31, 2007

waylay-9436159And like any good blogger, Geoff Boucher blogs his own attack: "I (literally) bumped into a young guy walking with three friends in the Gaslamp Quarter. They were tattooed and wearing the street uniform of baggy pants, white T-shirts and shaved heads. The guy started mad-dogging me, rasping threats. I told him I was just walking by, no offense meant. He got in my face, and I told him it would be stupid for us to make something out of nothing. "You calling me stupid?" "No, I’m not." Then I stopped talking, because my mouth was bleeding. One of his buddies, standing off to my side, cold-cocked me, and the ring on his fist took a chunk out of my face. I never saw it coming. I was at the emergency room until dawn."

Get well soon, Geoff. We’re all thinking of you. (Link via Tom Spurgeon. Artwork by Carol Lay, who’s a lovely and charming lady.)

DENNIS O’NEIL: Saturday Noon

  • News
  • July 31, 2007

dennyoneil100-7400785Saturday noon, and it still hadn’t arrived. Voldemort’s work? Or the machinations of something a bit more prosaic – book ninjas, maybe, or gremlins? But no. We fretted in vain. At about three, the doorbell rang, and there he was – Mr. Delivery Man, bearing our own copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

(I don’t think a spoiler warning is really necessary at this point – is there anyone who doesn‘t know Harry’s fate? – but what the hell, consider yourself warned.)

Soon, Marifran was in bed, reading – yes – the end of the novel. I asked her if Harry survives and she said that he does. Whew. The next evening, daughter Meg phoned from Seattle. She’s already finished it, all 759 pages. Do all bank vice-presidents spend their weekends reading?

What kind of people are these? What sort of mutated family did I marry into?

Me, I plan to wait for the movie. But I’m glad the book’s doing well. Better that gobs of money go to J.K. Rowling, who comports herself with some dignity, than to yet another deluded, sad young woman who calls attention to her desperate self by displaying what, in gentler times, would be seen only by her mate or her gynecologist.

Of course, not everyone is profiting by Ms. Rowling’s success. Independent bookshops, in order to compete with chains and on-line venues, are selling the book at such steep discounts that their profit is slim to none. And news reports tell us that just because a lot of kids are reading the Potter series doesn’t mean that they’ll read anything else. Apparently, Harry’s sui generis and after Deathly Hallows, it’s back to the tube for many.

But surely some kids will try other printed entertainment, once Harry teaches them that what’s printed can, in fact, be entertaining. Or so those of us who worry about the future of these United States can hope. Al Gore’s new and excellent book, The Assault on Reason (which I recommended last week) tells us that “…the parts of the human brain that are central to the reasoning process are continually activated by the very act of reading printed words…the passivity associated with watching television is at the expense of activity in parts of the brain associated with abstract thought, logic, and the reasoning process…An individual who spends four and a half hours a day watching television is likely to have a very different pattern of brain activity from an individual who spends four and a half hours reading.”

So, my understanding of Mr. Gore is, reading is not virtuous because it’s what grandma and grandpa did for fun, but because it stimulates a part of the brain that may be both underused and useful.

Is Harry Potter our new, albeit fictional, messiah? Well, no. We don’t want to take it that far. But given the current crop of wannabe saviors, we could do worse.

RECOMMENDED READING: Understanding McLuhan, by W. Terrence Gordon, illustrations by Susan Willmarth.

Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.

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