Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the executive producer of District 9, as well as the upcoming Mortal
Engines, The Adventures of Tintin, and The Hobbit, has been made a Knight Companion of New Zealand, which entitles him to the honorific “Sir”.
The award was given in recognition of Jackson’s efforts in jumpstarting the New Zealand film industry as well as for his artistic achievements.
Now when the crew of the Enterprise addresses him as Sir, they can really mean it.
Patrick Stewart is on the list of people to be knighted by H.R.M. Queen Elizabeth II this New Year’s Day, and in the U.K. will henceforth be known as Sir Patrick.
Stewart is known to comics fans for, among other things, playing Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies and Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He is also a fan of comics, having contributed an introduction to a Transmetropolitan collection, optioned the film rights, and having made his desire known to play the role of Spider Jerusalem in any screen adaptation of the property.
He is also a noted Shakespearean actor, having been a long-time member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and most recently performing as Cladius opposite David Tennant’s Hamlet.
It may be a skip week for the rest of the comics industry, but not here at ComicMix, where we bring you the conclusion of a story over a year in the telling!
Read the giant-sized finale of Lone Justice: Crash! by Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley right now!
And if you want to read it in paper, the first issue of Lone Justice will be coming out from IDW in February, followed by a trade paperback of the Harvey-nominated EZ Street in March!
Missed this one last Tuesday: while everybody else in the world was being good while awaiting the arrival of jolly old St. Nick, the folks on Wall Street were taking a different tack…
Lord Vader had no comment on rumors that he was stepping down as CEO of Microsoft to take on a new position at Goldman Sachs, possibly due to impending litigation from News Corporation which claims he is an employee of their subsidiary 20th Century Fox and is still contractually obligated to them.
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth Written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou; Art by Alecos Papadatos; Color by Annie Di Donna
Bloomsbury, September 2009, $22.95
Ever so often, there’s an object lesson that proves the saying so many of us like to make: that comics aren’t just for adventure stories, that they’re suitable for any kind of story. If we’re lucky, those paradigm-breakers are also really successful – and [[[Logicomix]]] is both of those things. It’s a major graphic novel on an unexpected topic – the life of Bertrand Russell, with a strong emphasis on his work attempting to create a solid foundation for mathematics, and thus all of learning – and it’s been quite commercially successful, alighting on bestseller lists occasionally and moving a surprising number of copies.
Logicomix, though, is also a piece of metafiction – the first character we see, on the first page of this graphic novel, is co-author Doxiadis, talking to the reader about this very story, and introducing us to co-author (and logician/computer science professor) Papadimitriou, and then to the art team, Papadatos and Di Donna, and their researcher, Anne. The authors and illustrators return to the stage – very literally, in one case at the end – several times in the course of the graphic novel, mostly to explain the details more carefully, and, occasionally, to lightly debate with each other about the meaning and import of the story.
After that bit of throat-clearing, Logicomix starts up in earnest…with another frame story, in which Bertrand Russell arrives to speak on logic at an unnamed “American University” on the eve of WWII, in 1939, and finds himself interrupted by protestors who want him to stand up unequivocally for pacifism, as he did during The Great War. Russell instead launches into his speech, which forms the narration boxes – and occasional interludes – for the rest of the graphic novel, as the panels depict first Russell’s youth and then his early mature years, as he worked on the foundations of logic.
I’m trying to avoid declaring an end-of-year window closing bankruptcy, wherein I just close every window and never look back, and then keep no more than ten tabs open.
Okay, twenty.
Thirty.
Stop me before I ctrl-click again.
I love this take on GI Joe and Cobra. Via Rob MacDougall.
And we shall call this Moff’s Law: Of all the varieties of irritating comment out there, the absolute most annoying has to be “Why can’t you just watch the movie for what it is??? Why can’t you just enjoy it? Why do you have to analyze it???” If you have posted such a comment, or if you are about to post such a comment, here or anywhere else, let me just advise you: Shut up.
E-book pricing from an insider: While some houses like Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins are
experimenting with windowing ebook releases, we’ve tried a more
controversial method. Ebooks are released the same day as the
hardcover, but the pricing is determined by those numbered balls you
see on lottery drawings. If the three balls come up 981, then the ebook
is $9.81. (Or $981, depending on how we’re feeling.)
You may have seen the ads on your local Fox station: the big meanies at Time Warner Cable might keep you from watching Fox networks. The problem is that the ads are filled with fibs and fertilizer.
The negotiations have nothing to do with the main Fox broadcast network, which actually airs all the shows mentioned in the ads (House, American Idol, The Simpsons, Family Guy and the NFL broadcasts). What’s being renegotiated are what Time Warner Cable is actually paying for Fox’s cable channels, such as FX, SPEED, FUEL TV, Fox
Movie Channel, Fox Reality Channel, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en
Español, and FS Arizona, Florida, Houston, Indiana, Kansas City,
Midwest, Southwest, West, and Prime Ticket, SportSouth, and Sun Sports.
In fact, Time Warner Cable CAN’T lose the Fox broadcast channel, that channel has must-carry status– a status that Fox has lobbied very hard to get for Fox News, by the way.
Fox is attempting to raise the prices they’re charging cable companies to carry their networks and are bundling the networks together so you have to carry all of them or none of them, and they’re not telling you that’s what it’s about. I’m sure that if Fox kept their rates constant, TWC would have no problem paying the same rate– but Fox appears to be tripling the rate.
Ah, and I now see notes that indicate that if no deal is reached, Fox will pull all of their programming, broadcast and cable both. That should be fun when their licenses come up for renewal.
Observant folks will note that this is the same strategy Rupert Murdoch talks about when he says that he’s going to pull all of News Corporation content from Google unless they pay him. To which we say: go ahead.
It gives that Fox show Lie To Me an interesting double meaning, no?
Reviewing what is essentially an art book is tough if you’re not an artist since so many of the proper words and phrases can prove elusive. Also, if you have only a passing familiarity with the artist, you might lack the experience to judge the work. Still, if you like art, like fantasy and science fiction, the hope is that the package is compelling enough for you to buy it and learn more.
The 59 year old artist Luis Royo is perhaps best known in America for his work in the 1980s in [[[Heavy Metal]]]. His popularity there led to countless paperback cover paintings and then his work in trading cards, culminating in several sets from Comic Images to spotlight him.
In 1994, Royo’s first collection of work, [[[Malefic]]], was released and has since gone on to be an international best seller. Now, coming in February from NBM, a new edition will be unveiled. The hardcover book, measuring 8.5” x 10.5”, has is the first in a newly remastered set of Royo’s collections. Beginning here and to be carried on through subsequent volumes, Royo will redesign and reorganize his paintings, adding to the complete works.
Under a new cover, which shows the painter has not seen his talent diminish, the book is a collection of sketches and finished works with scant text that attempts to evoke a mood for each portrait. Maybe it’s the translation from the original Spanish, but the prose is poor at provoking a feeling or conveying information. In some ways, the book would have been better without it or Royo should have hired a writer to flesh things out.
Regardless, his art speaks volumes without a single letter. In the introduction, Miguelanxo Prado notes, “He fills his airbrush with darkness and spreads it left and right with virtuous accuracy. He paints thick, Lovecraftian fogs, the kind that wrap everything in gloom, like vapors from cheesy special effects.”
Royo’s work is somber, using a limited color palette to work with, keeping all his settings filled with dread or despair. Even his warriors at repose are bathed in muted tones, indicating danger is merely at bay, not at all defeated. He works predominantly with acrylic and oil on paper and the work is moving and imaginative.
Examining the occasional preliminary sketch with the finished product shows the detail and twisted thinking that makes his work distinctive. While the outfits his men, and especially his women, wear isn’t always practical, they are always memorable. What’s really interesting is that the feeling one gets from his pencil work and his painted work can be entirely different. Both are good, and always engaging.
The women are full-figured without exaggeration and varied in physical type. His men avoid the bodybuilder template while his creatures – organic or mechanical – never feel out of place. There’s an undercurrent of sensuality in his compositions regardless of setting or impending doom.
In this book alone, there are few recurring characters, although the title figure, Malefic, can be found in multiple images. Overall, this is a handsomely packaged, albeit expensive, art book. Royo fans will certainly rejoice in having new material and a unified library. More casual art fans are encouraged to check this out and see other worlds and ideas conjured up in a compelling way.
It really is the year of the nerd, isn’t it?
Now when the crew of the Enterprise addresses him as Sir, they can really mean it.
It may be a skip week for the rest of the comics industry, but not here at ComicMix, where we bring you the conclusion of a story over a year in the telling!
I’m trying to avoid declaring an end-of-year window closing bankruptcy, wherein I just close every window and never look back, and then keep no more than ten tabs open. 
How repetitive humor works
You may have seen the ads on your local Fox station: the big meanies at Time Warner Cable might keep you from watching Fox networks. The problem is that the ads are filled with fibs and fertilizer.
Regardless, his art speaks volumes without a single letter. In the introduction, Miguelanxo Prado notes, “He fills his airbrush with darkness and spreads it left and right with virtuous accuracy. He paints thick, Lovecraftian fogs, the kind that wrap everything in gloom, like vapors from cheesy special effects.”
