MINDY NEWELL: Character

Mindy Newell

These days Mindy Newell knows that if she could do it all over again she’d have gone to college for screenwriting and film editing. Instead she became a nurse to please her parents and pleasing your parents was what it was all about for nice Jewish girls who graduated from high school in 1971. But the creative larva was in her soul, and when the cocoon broke and the butterfly emerged, it flew to DC’s New Talent Showcase program. Under the auspices of legendary editors Karen Berger, Len Wein, Julius Schwartz, Paul Levitz, and ComicMix’s own Robert Greenberger, Mindy learned the craft and art of writing comics, including Tales Of The Legion, V, Legionnaires 3, Amethyst, Lois Lane: When It Rains God Is Crying, and numerous other comics, including a Superman story based on a dream Mindy had as a child. She also worked on Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! and other independent comics. All this time Mindy continued to work as a nurse while being a single mom to her daughter Alixandra, until the late and dear Mark Gruenwald hired her as an assistant editor at Marvel, while writing stories of the Black Widow and Daredevil. She edited NFL Pro Action, a licensed kid’s magazine about football with the NFL until Marvel imploded in 1996. Returning to full-time nursing, she she also co-wrote a story for 2000 A.D. with her then-husband, British artist John Higgins. A few years ago Mike Gold called and asked her to join the team of columnists here at ComicMix, where her topics freely range from comics to pop culture to politics; she even wrote a piece about the great American thoroughbred Secretariat, which caused editor Mike to tell her that she had won the prize for the most off-topic column ever written ComicMix.

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5 Responses

  1. George Haberberger says:

    But is she plausible? The movie shows that, as far as being capable of being “one heartbeat away from the Presidency,” Palin was an implausible candidate.

    Yes, that is absolutely what the movie shows. I’ve also seen a movie that shows two black actors playing FBI agents who disguise themselves as white women and pass. Movies show a lot of things that aren’t plausible.

    I can list the errors and out-right lies of “Game Change” if you’d like but I suspect that would be a futile endeavor. I will say that McCain did not lose the election because of Palin. Palin lost the election because of McCain.

  2. Mindy Newell says:

    “I will say that McCain did not lose the election because of Palin. Palin lost the election because of McCain.”

    That’s a VERY interesting thought, George. I’d love to hear more of your reasoning!

    Mindy

  3. George Haberberger says:

    Well, McCain was behind in the polls by about 7 points until Palin’s convention speech. Up until her presence on the ticket many Republicans were ambivalent about McCain. They certainly appreciated his service to the country, but he was not a 180° option from Obama’s stated objectives and support for him was soft. After Palin’s speech, McCain/Palin were up by about 4 points. an 11 point swing. That may have held up, (no way to know for sure now), but McCain kind up screwed up by halting his campaign when the banking crisis hit as if he had some important plan to implement, but in reality did not. George Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points”, made quite a distinct point about that.

    Also Palin was targeted with lies about the maternity of her baby, lies about the reason her son joined the military; she was accused of banning books that hadn’t even been published when she was supposed to have done it, Trooper-gate became a bigger story than it deserved and it was something she was cleared of before the election.

    Most of the summer, the battle between Hillary and Obama was great theater. Once Obama nailed down the nomination, most of the media and the blogosphere did not want that story to end with a whimper. The first black president was what they wanted and for that to just dissipate in favor of yet another old white guy was not acceptable. Palin had to be destroyed because she was making his election a reality.

    When Game Change was first put into production, most thought Palin would run in 2012 and this movie, scheduled for the first weekend after Super Tuesday, would hurt her. Her decision to not run kind of made that effort a bit ironic. In the book this movie is based on, Palin’s name does not appear until page 351. There were barely 100 pages left in the book, yet the movie is entirely about her.

    Mindy, your statement: She is empathetic – and sympathetic – as she works to maintain her sense of self and, love them or hate them, her own beliefs against the McCain and Republican political machinery.; is a lot more fair than most of what I read about her. People forget, or don’t want to acknowledge, that she wasn’t all that popular with the established Republican party in Alaska. Her popularity with the voters was incredible but the party bosses were less sanguine. That is still the case today.

  4. Mindy Newell says:

    George, I never believed that bullshit about her son. I didn’t care that her daughter was pregnant. I admired her son for being in the military. What I care about when it comes to politics is the knowledge and capability that the candidate has, ESPECIALLY when it comes to international affairs, of which I believe most of the people in the country are completely ignorant, either because they’re too lazy to care or because they think that we can go back to an isolationist position.

    McCain, like Romney is now, was so desperate to be President that he reversed positions and would say anything to please the extremist nuts of the Republican party. THAT hurt him more than anything else. Probably his finest hour during the campaign was when he shut down that crazy lady at the Town Hall who insisted that Obama was an Arab, a Muslim, and a terrorist. THOUGH EVEN THAT, IMO, WAS NOT A STRONG ENOUGH “REFUTIATION.” As leader of the party at that time, he should have made a public statement about the hatred spilling of the mouths of racist bastards and ignorant Christians who don’t even know that most of the Founding Fathers were products of an age that put humanism over any organized religion.

    And don’t count her out, yet. George.

    Mindy

  5. George Haberberger says:

    I agree that when McCain said “He’s a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with.” was the high point of the campaign.

    And don’t count her out, yet. George.
    Rest assured, I’m not. If you get a chance, take a look at “Undefeated” the Palin documentary. It was on the Reelz channel last Sunday and will be repeated on 3/25. Yes, it is unapologetically pro-Palin, so that’s, you know, unique.