Discussion about the death of Captain America probably won’t die down for awhile, and that’s just how Marvel likes it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t glean all the humor we can out of this event. To that end, in Episode 95 of The Fred Hembeck Show, the cartoonist presents a scenario wherein he sees dead people. Right said, Fred.
SciFi Wire reports that NBC.com will be auctioning off some of Tim Sale’s artwork from Heroes in two separate auctions (beginning March 26 and April 2) to benefit the Epilepsy Foundation, a favorite of Heroes cast member Greg Grunberg, whose son Jake is an epileptic. Here’s the official bidding site. I can’t even imagine how much Hiro Battles T-Rex (above) will go for…
According to the Hollywood Reporter, John August has been chosen to write the screenplay for New Line Cinema’s adaptation of the DC comic Shazam!, currently enjoying a resurgence thanks to the writing and art of Bone creator Jeff Smith. August has served as screenwriter for a number of Tim Burton’s recent movies, including Big Fish, Corpse Bride and Charlie the Chocolate Factory.
But it wasn’t Smith to whom August turned for continuity advice. Instead he had a session with Geoff Johns for "idiot checking" to keep it true to the characters that readers expect. "I think we’re going to be able to be really faithful to the mythology and yet make it completely transparent for people who have no idea who the character is," August said, adding, "It’s a unique opportunity to do a comic book movie where the character in it actually read comic books."
The will be produced by Michael Ewing and Peter Segal; Segal is also set to direct. Let the casting call speculations begin!
Have you sprung forward this morning? Feel like you’ve missed an hour or so? Well, come spend another one with us catching up on the weekly columns you may have missed! Here they are all in one place for your convenience:
Yeah, John and I switched days this week, for reasons which you will discover when you read our respective columns. And of course, Mellifluous Mike Raub is making history thrice weekly with his podcasts:
Lots of surprises in them thar audios! And as a bonus for our first month online, here are our past roundups:
One other thing. You may have noticed the site redesign starting, with the addition of more items per page and such. Trust us, there’s much more to come!
Because Battlestar Galactica fans demanded it, and they didn’t even know it! Also because hey, it provides the SciFi Channel with more airtime filler and they don’t have to work to get it. In any case, the newest bit of viral interactive fun care of SciFi is the Battlestar Galactica Videomaker Toolkit, which allows viewers to insert sound, visual and music clips from the show in their own homemade four-minute masterpieces, which they can then upload to the site in a sort of contest where the winner will be shown during the airing of a future BSG episode.
Maybe we’ll get to see a cool Starbuck resurrection scene, combined perhaps with a Stephen Colbert green screen kinda deal…
Cartoonist Barry Deutsch aka Ampersand reposts a lengthy analysis from his blog archives comparing the oeuvre, if you will (and if you won’t, I certainly won’t), of Charles Schultz’ Peanuts versus Jim Davis’ Garfield.
Deutsch subjectively crowns Peanuts the winner in every one of his self-defined categories of Originality, Humaneness, Emotional Life, Egalitarianism, Grace and Humor. Fortunately, Lasagna is not one of his categories, or it wouldn’t be such a clean sweep.
Andy Mangels, curator of the online Wonder Woman Museum, writes to apologize for the belated heads-up about a Canadian TV programme called FANatical, which airs weekly on the TVtropolis channel.
Seems this past week’s episode featured musings on Andy’s favorite character, featuring interviews with him and Anina Bennett (pictured at right at last year’s Wonder Woman Day charity event), as well as appearances by Terry Dodson, Anne Timmons, Matt Clark, Paul Guinan, Michael Eury and others. As this episode aired last Tuesday with a rerun this morning at 9:30 AM Eastern. Does anyone have a YouTube excerpt they’d care to share?
Friends of Lulu has been a visible player in the comics world for about fifteen years now. Like many organizations, it’s had its share of controversy. It’s also helped give visibility and voice to a lot of talented writers and artists in an industry where, until very recently, one of the most frequently asked questions seemed to be "where are all the women comics creators?"
In the interest of full disclosure, I was very active in FoL for a number of years, and helped nurture some of its successful ventures dealing with women’s visibility like the Women Doing Comics list on the national website and the Women in Comics discussion series hosted by the New York chapter (see logo at right, created for the FoL/NY t-shirts by my best friend, the late Leah Adezio). So I feel a bit like a mother hen when noting that the latter is still going strong, currently in association with the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in Manhattan’s SoHo district, which hosts what it calls their "MoCCA Mondays."
This coming Monday, March 12, MoCCA and FoL/NY present a panel called The Big Picture, as artist Marion Vitus moderates a discussion with a group of four diverse professionals — Del Rey Manga’s Trisha Narwani, NYPL Teen Central’s Melissa Jenvey, artist Christine Norrie, and Friends of Lulu cofounder Heidi McDonald — as they look ahead in the comic book world. The program begins at 6:30 PM and is absolutely free. Tell them the mother hen sent ya.
Bibi’s Box has gathered together a number of remembrances of comics writer Yvan Delporte, who died on March 5. Bibi notes that Delport " was the editor-in-chief of Le Journal de Spirou (Spirou), a Belgian magazine, between 1955 and 1968 during a period considered by many the golden age of Franco-Belgian comics." Francophones can see lots of nice visual homages to Delporte here – the sentiment certainly comes through even if you can’t read the language.
While visual controversy is said to boost the sales of newspapers just as sensationalism ups the ratings of cable news shows, it’s also true that many people in charge of these institutions tend toward the conservative or timid.
For those of us who’ve often wondered where we can see the cartoons these editors have rejected as being too hot to handle, David Wallis’ new book Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression presents about a hundred of them all in one place, from creators like Kirk Anderson (above), Garry Trudeau, Ted Rall, Anita Kunz and Doug Marlette, as well as " unearthed gems by legends like David Low, Herblock and Norman Rockwell," complete with the stories behind the rejections. Guaranteed to get a good discussion going about the fine line between editors doing their jobs and cartoonists answering their calling.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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