Monthly Archive: April 2008

Frank Miller: Comics ‘Strip-Mined’ by Movies

  • News
  • April 25, 2008

The Los Angeles Times just had a story about the boom in comics-to-film. In a recent six-week stretch, some 22 comics properties were optioned, the paper reported.

That includes Locke & Key, the supernatural thriller by Joe Hill for IDW (cover at right). While this is great news for many and illustrates the growing popularity of comics, not everyone is looking at the boom with rose-colored glasses.

"It’s accelerating because right now it’s fashion," says Frank Miller, who created the graphic novels behind "Sin City" and "300," and whose early-’80s series "Ronin," about a reincarnated samurai battling evil in a futuristic New York, is being adapted by Joby Harold ("Awake") for Warner Bros. "I think we can expect it to calm down. Comic books have always been this vast mountain range that gets strip-mined and left behind."

The main point of the story, though, is that one reason so many comics are adapted is that comics and graphic novels are substantially easier to read than screenplays. Miller calls screenplays the "single [worst] story form" and "unreadable."

Interview: Paul Southworth on ‘Ugly Hill’

Interview: Paul Southworth on ‘Ugly Hill’

  • News
  • April 25, 2008

Paul Southworth’s webcomic Ugly Hill is about, well… monsters.

At least, that’s how he usually describes it.

If I were to describe it, I’d write that the five-day-a-week strip features a brightly colored cast of creatures who experience the trials and tribulations of life in a bleak, consumer-driven world not entirely unlike our own — except that it’s full of monsters. That’s how I’d describe it.

I’d also write that Ugly Hill is part of the Blank Label Comics collective, and at the end of the month, the multiple Web Cartoonists Choice Award-winning strip will celebrate its third year on the InterWebs.

Oh, and I’d also mention that Paul Southworth recently became a new daddy.

But the thing is, I don’t want to put words in his mouth, so I’ll just let the following interview I conducted with Paul explain everything about his wildly successful webcomic.

COMICMIX: First off, congratulations on the new addition to the family! What’s your schedule like these days?

PAUL SOUTHWORTH: Rigorous. I thought I was busy before, but it turns out I was living a life of spoiled luxury, concerned only for myself and my own ridiculous pursuits. Now my life is consumed with filling bottles, mixing just the right amount of orange mush with just the right amount of pale green mush, and having long, detailed conversations about the size, frequency, and consistency of another human being’s feces. Somewhere in there I manage to work a day job for nine hours and draw a comic strip on the side.

To be fair, sometimes I can draw and hold a conversation about human waste simultaneously, but only when I’m pressed for time.

CMix: Well, I’ll try to keep this short, then. How did you prepare for keeping the strip active when the baby came home?

PS: I always try to keep at least 2-3 weeks ahead of publication. When I started the strip, I was six weeks ahead, but I squandered that away somehow.

So I just tried to work ahead as much as possible. I was also able to line up two weeks’ worth of wonderful guest artists to fill in for me directly after the birth, which was so helpful. I don’t think there has been a time in my life that I have thought less about drawing than those 3 or 4 panicky weeks after my son was born, so not having to worry too much about it was a blessing. Otherwise, after the guest strips had run their course and my buffer had dwindled, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’m sure glad it worked out, though!

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Send In The Clowns, by Michael Davis

Send In The Clowns, by Michael Davis

  • News
  • April 25, 2008

Last week I was in New York for just 24 hours. I flew in to do my Black Panel at the New York Comic Con and meet with Mike Gold about another project I’m doing for ComicMix. The week before I was suffering from a series of migraine headaches and got on the plane with the full knowledge that I could have a relapse. THEN Jet Blue lost the only bag I checked. That bag happened to be what I needed for a meeting with Mike and another meeting I was having. So with all that in mind I was not expecting the best of times. In fact I was thinking the trip was a mistake.

So I was not in the greatest of moods when I got to the con. THEN I had an impromptu

meeting with Mike Richardson, which turned into great news! THEN I meet with Mike Gold and that meeting was great even without the stuff I wanted him to see that was in the bag that Jet Blue lost. THEN I talked to Dwayne McDuffie and got some more good news from him about a project we are planning! THEN, the Black Panel was great fun. THEN I had dinner with ComicMix’s Media Goddess Martha Thomas and she introduced me to TWO great writers that I hope to work with in the future.

THEN, I was sharing some more good news with my best friend Denys Cowan. As head of BET Animation, a division of Black Entertainment Television (BET), he announced production on The Black Panther animated series, which is really cool.

So, I was feeling pretty darn good when I flew back to L.A.

THEN I met this guy… 

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Marvel Interactive on Iron Man and Hulk: New Deal For Comic Book Videogames?

Marvel Interactive on Iron Man and Hulk: New Deal For Comic Book Videogames?

  • News
  • April 24, 2008

Comic book and videogame fanboys freaked out a little recently when the news broke that Sega would be handling Marvel’s movie-based games. After years of bad Marvel Comics videogames, Activision turned out solid hits that satisfied the mainstream and comic fans alike, such as Spider-Man and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. While the Activision partnership continues, the New York Comic Con panel Marvel – Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk: Making the Video Games emphasized that Marvel themselves were taking a greater hand in game creation.

Justin Lambros, VP of Marvel Interactive, operates out of the same West Coast office as Marvel Studios. The philosophy is that his division can oversee the partners, and with their studio ties they can improve the process by increasing development times, granting access to movie assets earlier, speeding approvals and allow for movie talent participation. They can also relate to the studios what the limitations are of the current systems.

It’s an interesting idea that brings to mind the ’90s buzzword "synergy," but in this case it seems to be making good on its promises. As mentioned in earlier articles, the Iron Man movie-based game producers were granted access to the CGI models for the armor much earlier then usual. Iron Man game director Jeffrey Tseng said that meeting the cast while doing the voices made a difference.

"Robert Downey gave us insights into the character," said Tseng — something they wouldn’t have received with sound-alike voice actors. Also, the action figures for the Iron Man and Incredible Hulk movies will feature characters only seen in the videogame adaptation.

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Happy Birthday: Howie Schneider

Happy Birthday: Howie Schneider

  • News
  • April 24, 2008

Born in the Bronx, NY in 1930, Howie Schneider is best remembered for Eek & Meek, the comic about two mice (later two men) he created for the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) in 1965 and ran for 35 years.

Schneider also published several cartoon books, wrote a daily cartoon called Unschucked for the Provincetown Banner after he moved there in the mid-1970s, and in 2003 launched a new daily syndicated strip, The Sunshine Club. Schneider served on the Newspaper Features Council board for 20 years, and on the National Cartoonists Society board for eight.

He won the New England Press Association award for Best Editorial Cartoon twice. Schneider died in 2007 from complications after heart surgery.

Comicspace/Webcomics Nation Merger: The Interview

Comicspace/Webcomics Nation Merger: The Interview

  • News
  • April 24, 2008

Gary Tyrrell of the popular webcomics blog Fleen doesn’t do a lot of interviews, so when he does have the opportunity to do one, he makes it count. Case in point: His recent conversation with Webcomics Nation founder Joey Manley and John Boeck, one of the primary investors in comics-focused social networking site ComicSpace, on the recent merger of the two online entities.

While much of the discussion focuses on the pair’s plan for the two projects and how the new union could fit into the greater webcomics scene, it’s an interesting read for anyone of the industry-watching mindset. The duo claim that comics publishing isn’t one of their goals, but instead they’re setting plans in motion to "allow the artist to delegate the secondary tasks that aren’t writing and drawing, and to pay a fair fee for those services, not to have to give up the IP in exchange for those services."

Intriguing it is, yes…

My favorite part of the interview, however, has to be Manley’s explanation of what attracted him to Boeck and his investment group, E-Line Ventures:

Theirs was the first proposal that didn’t skeeve us out. They didn’t want to just write a check, they wanted to work with us — they’re teaching us, they’re not out to steal the IP.

Head over to Fleen for the full interview.

ComicMix Radio: Fear Not Faint Hulk!

ComicMix Radio: Fear Not Faint Hulk!

While the world gets more pumped for Iron Man, the buzz for the Hulk film continues to be accompanied with raised eyebrows and memories of that 2003 film. Marvel Studios President of Production, Kevin Feige tells you why those fears are groundless, plus:

— DC sends the Killing Joke Special Edition back to press

— Fox hangs on to Sarah Connor

— Clear off the game table for a ton of new Star Wars minis

Okay, we have to say it: Press the button or Hulk will smash!

 

 
  And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via iTunes - ComicMix or RSS!
 

The Weekly Haul: Reviews for April 24, 2008

  • News
  • April 24, 2008

This week in comics was all over the map, a schizophrenic jumble of thrills, idiocy, fun and pulp. The good books were great, and the bad ones were terrible. At the very least, it was entertaining from start to finish.

Book of the Week: The Mice Templar #4 — After the third issue of this series came out a couple months back, I wrote that while it was a good read, I was still waiting for the story to diverge from the rote fantasy plot. Writer Bryan J.L. Glass sent me a note saying just wait for issue #4, when things take a big turn.

Sure enough, the latest issue marks the point when The Mice Templar went from good to great. This isn’t just a fantasy tale featuring mice, it’s an intricately detailed epic and one of the best stories on comics shelves today.

In issue #4, Karic and Pilot continue their journey, with Karic showing both his potential as a great Templar and his youthful uncertainty. As they go along, Glass draws readers deeper into the massive mythos he has created, a back story that is mysterious but not confused. The issue ends with a too-good-to-spoil moment of "nothing will ever be the same." My only complaint is having to wait two months for the next issue.

Lastly, Mike Oeming’s art on this series improves with every issue, and it started out strong. He manages to make scenes of fighting mice into tense, dramatic moments, and his watercolor work in the concluding pages expands on the perceptions of what comic book art can be.

The Runners Up:

The Mighty Avengers #12 — Those of us who bailed out on the end of the horrifically delayed Secret War finally have an answer to the question of "Where the hell did Nick Fury go?" In this potboiler of an issue, Brian Michael Bendis diverges from the boring Mighty team to trace Fury’s movements while in exile, starting with the one-eyed wonder finding out about the Skrull infiltration.

From there, a paranoid Fury pushes forward as covertly as possible, investigating anyone and everyone to determine who the Skrulls are. The issue ends with an exhausted and uncertain Fury standing before a wall of photos of heroes, some marked as Skrulls. The issue follows in tone the great Gene Hackman thriller The Conversation, and is perhaps the best Secret Invasion lead-in yet.

Fall of Cthulhu #11 — This Lovecraftian tale from BOOM! Studios has been up and down over the first storylines, but the latest (The Gray Man) starts off like a perfect blend of Lovecraft’s stories and an old issue from EC Comics. A mysterious girl — you know trouble’s brewing when her nickname is Lucifer — is pulled into a sheriff’s office, and the authorities struggle to figure out how she’s connected to all the recent trouble in Arkham.

Michael Alan Nelson’s script work because he perfectly sets up the sheriff and his deputies in the role of the unknowing everymen who’ve stumbled into some ugliness far beyond their comprehension. This is a genuinely creepy book.

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ComicMix Six: The Worst Superhero Names in Comics

ComicMix Six: The Worst Superhero Names in Comics

You know you’ve talked about it with your friends. "Mr. Fantastic? He’s got, like, 17 doctorates… Shouldn’t he be ‘Doctor Fantastic’ by now?" And let’s not forget "Captain Marvel, Junior." Captain Marvel’s not his father. What gives? And what’s the deal with that Golden Age aquatic hero who called himself "The Fin?"

No matter how much we love comics, there are some superhero aliases we just can’t get behind. So we did our best to compile some of the worst superhero names in existence.

By the way, members of the Legion of Super-Heroes have been omitted from the list, because… well, it’s just too easy to pick on Matter-Eater Lad and Bouncing Boy.

 

6. KID MIRACLEMAN: In the U.K., he was originally called "Kid Marvelman." That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a lame name. Why?

KID MiracleMAN.

You can use the word "kid" in your name or you can use the word "man," but you can’t use both! With the power of contradiction comes great responsibility!

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